(VOICE OF NAIJA)-Ms Darshana Deka, Conference Producer, IoT West Africa, says that Nigeria must move beyond its current reliance on solar energy and explore broader renewable options to effectively power its growing digital economy.
Deka said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
She said the country’s power sector held huge potential but was yet to be fully optimised to support digital infrastructure growth.
“As for the regulatory gaps, I see a few gaps, not in the IoT market, but rather in the power market.
“The power market in Nigeria is huge. It has massive potential, and while it is being utilised to the extent of solar, there are many other renewable and sustainable energy sources that can be explored,” she said.
Deka noted that expanding beyond solar energy would be critical to meeting the growing demand from data centres to other digital infrastructure.
“Nigeria is still continuing with solar, so I think we need to move beyond solar and look at what are the other avenues,” she said.
On the vision behind IoT West Africa, Deka said the platform was created to demonstrate how multiple sectors collectively drive the digital economy.
“The main purpose is to practically show how the convergence of IoT, data centres, power and water are the main accelerators of Nigeria’s digital economy.
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“That is why we brought these separate ecosystems under one roof,” she said.
She explained that the initiative was designed to highlight the interdependence of these sectors.
“When we started five years ago, we saw clear differences between the energy sector, data centre sector and IoT.
“The idea was to bring them together and show how they are connected and transact with one another, not operate in isolation,” she said.
Deka added that this approach had contributed to the emergence of what she described as critical infrastructure in Nigeria.
“Critical infrastructure today is a convergence of physical and digital systems, and we have seen the rise of such facilities in Nigeria,” she said.
Highlighting the gaps in the data centre ecosystem, Deka said Nigeria still required more local capacity despite increasing investments.
“There were only a handful of data centres when we started, less than 10.
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“With the number of companies coming in and investments flowing, data will become a major issue,” she said.
She stressed the importance of data sovereignty, noting that countries must retain control over their data.
“Nigeria will want to control its data. You don’t want to give out a country’s data to another country to keep it safe.
“That is why more local data centres are needed,” she said.
On the impact of the platform, Deka said IoT West Africa and Data Cloud Expo (Power and Water) had facilitated collaboration among key stakeholders.
“We have brought together people who are now sitting together to make changes, such as industry leaders, innovators, policymakers and investors.
“These are the people who can shape Nigeria’s 2030 economic goals,” she said.
She added that the conversations enabled by the platform were beginning to translate into tangible outcomes.
“We are seeing some of these discussions materialising into action, and that is what we have been able to achieve,” she said.
NAN