In 2020, Nigerian businesswoman Fara Ashir launched her platform FINTE, AWS.
Since cloud providers did not accept payments in Naira, she had to pay for services in US dollars. When Naira lost about 70% of its value between 2020 and 2024, the monkey expenses increased. “Accounts were stunning,” Ashi said The rest of the world. With the economic challenges of Nigeria, this model has become unsustainable.
In order to reduce the costs, it moved its cloud infrastructure to local data centers in Nigeria and South Africa in 2024.
Nebula is part of the growing trend of Nigerian cloud providers that offers an alternative to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Companies such as Nobus, Galaxy, Suburban and Layer3 are placed as local opportunities for businesses that try to avoid volatility of exchange rates and maintain data in the country. Several startups have already moved to these providers.
In addition to cost savings, local cloud services Nigerian businesses help store data on the domestic market, which reduces latency and solves concerns about sovereignty data. Since data control debates are intensive, many businesses are a priority local storage.
Cloud international providers seem to adapt to this shift. In January, the AWS in Naira began acceptable payments and broadcast that the local currency improves customer experience.
Experts in the field consider this a practical step. “I think AWS realized that he had to accept Naire because you accept Naire, you are wasting time,” said Iyinolow ABoyeji, Africa Africa controlling partner. “We regularly recommend our portfolio companies to look for local solutions, if possible, and manage the main costs as (cloud) in Naira.”
AWS, Microsoft and Google did not answer the comment.
The Nigerian technology sector includes more than 19,000 startups, with 1,400 companies supported by businesses that have received almost $ 28 billion together.
Despite their dominance, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud have their concept of African data centers in South Africa. In 2019, Microsoft has established Johannesburg devices with plans to expand for Kenya. AWS followed in 2020 and Google Cloud recently joined them in Johannesburg. In 2023, AWS launched a small local zone in Lagos, but was not full of data center in Nigeria.
Placing data becomes a priority because governments seek to maintain data within its borders. Nigerian startups are moving to local cloud providers who see it as an advertisement. “How does it sound that Nigerian voters are stored in Europe?” He asked Bruce Ayonote, CEO of the suburban cloud. “As long as we continue to ask this question, we will always arrive at a point where we are building our own cloud infrastructure.”
This emphasis on the sovereignty of data could help Nigerian cloud providers to get traction, even if the AWS its price prices. “We are involved in our narrative about the sovereignty of data,” said Chidi Okpala, media head in Galaxy Backbone. Galaxy Backbone, originally built for government interoperability, now provides cloud services for public and private sector customers, Operational data centers in Abuja and Kano.
Performance is another factor that controls the shift. Abuja Suburban Cloud helps customers like Netflix and Google reduce latency. “Latence is a big problem when it comes to cloud business, and these global companies know that they have to build some forms of closeness to their users,” Ayonote said.
Building data centers is expensive and often requires millions of dollars. Some Nigerian startups are involved in the rental of space in the existing facility owned by telecommunications companies, banks and IT. “Let’s run our cloud services from third -party data centers in Nigeria,” said Oyaje iDoko, founder Layer3. “We currently have three zones of availability of two data centers in Lagos and one in Abuji.”
The demand for colocting services is growing. “We see more collocations and other services of local cloud providers that control growing digital technology, growing requirement and the most important need for payment in the local currency,” said Obinna Adumike, head of converged digital infrastructure with open access.
Despite these advantages, local cloud providers face challenges. Infrastructure gaps and less automation than global competitors remain obstacles. Ugochukwu Okoro, CEO of the Tech Firm Mustter, nodded that while he prefers to work with the Nigerian cloud provider Gigalayer, he lacks the automation of AWS.
“Their services are great, but I do not uncover many users who might want to use them for skill. I have to manually integrate our system gradually, something most of my engineers cannot do because they are used to the smooth plug-and-play that AWS produced, ”he said.
See also: Microsoft’s palm size chip brings practical quantum calculation within reach
Do you want to know more about cyber security and cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo in Amsterdam, California and London.
Explore other upcoming events and webinars with technology and webinars driven Techforge here.