The Minister of Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson, welcomed the establishment of a major data centre in Lagos State saying it will boost economic growth.
The Minister spoke after commissioning Main One's Tier III Data Centre in Lekki.
Johnson reiterated that government exited from ICT industry over a decade ago to pave the way for increased private sector participation in the industry.
Government's role thus became and remained the formulation and implementation of policy and the establishment of a predictable, consistent and stable regulatory environment that would drive competition, attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to support and sustain job and wealth creation.
She stressed that the resulting telecommunications revolution and the estimated $ 30 billion in direct investments realized is testament to the success of the policy and the robustness of the associated regulatory environment.
She added that the need to continue to invest in broadband infrastructure to deliver ubiquitous internet for all Nigerians is unarguable but there is also a need for infrastructure investments in essential complementary services that are critical to delivering enhanced, cost efficient access to the internet.
"Today a disproportionate amount of the data generated by our increasingly technology-dependent economy is stored outside of this country denying the local providers of data storage and business applications recovery service offerings of revenues and opportunities to scale up their service offerings."
She said too many of the websites that are visited daily and almost solely by Nigerians were hosted offshore the critical switching of local internet traffic was done by internet exchanges outside of the country.
This adds to the cost and response time when local users access these websites.
"It is therefore with great excitement that I am here to witness the commissioning of Main One's Tier III data centre. This data centre, representing an investment of $ 40 Million, is the largest of its kind in West Africa at 1 500 square meters and a 600-rack capacity.
"This data center also represents a significant addition of professionally designed, delivered and managed data hosting capacity that will improve the Internet services available to companies in Nigeria and the sub Region," she said.
The $40 million, 600-rack facility, designed to meet TIA 942, standards is the largest commercial data center in West Africa.
The data centre is a Tier III Certified by Uptime Institute, the global authority for Data Center Standards. This Certification implies minimum availability of 99.982 percent (maximum of 30 minutes downtime in a year).
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