President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the National Tier-IV Data Center in Kano today. The tier-IV Data centre is positioned to attract organisations looking at deepening their digital services at a vastly reduced cost of technology infrastructure, improved efficiency and productivity.
During the ceremony, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Ali Isa Pantami, said the data centre was the first of its kind in northern Nigeria and the best in the country.
According to the minister, the centre is a technology-upgraded facility built to provide more storage facilities for both public and private sectors across the country, with its 41 terabytes of memory capacity and 2.2-petabyte storage capacity.
Prof. Pantami further declared that the tier-IV data center, executed by Galaxy Backbone Limited. would improve the digital economy, provide job opportunities and enhance cybersecurity while supporting the country to consolidate the gains of the digital economy.
“Government has its main data centre in Abuja, another one in the South, which is a backup, and this is another one in the North West.
“That of Abuja and the South were established some years ago. But this centre here is higher because it is a tier-IV data centre. The one we have in Abuja is a tier-three data centre. So, this is an upgrade of the existing data centres we have in the country in both private and public sectors. It is world-class,” Pantami disclosed.
Benefits of the tier-IV Data Center
It has been widely reported that people generate over five quintillion bytes of data worldwide daily. Significantly, 51% of this will, by 2025, be stored in data centres, and 49% will be in the public cloud.
With the volume of data being generated across corporate organisations and industries at an alarming rate, this project by the Nigeria Galaxy Backbone aligns with national aspirations by being an active player in global digitization. The country is set to become one of the most recognized digital economies in the world.
The tier-IV data center will help deploy state-of-the-art digital infrastructure and apply international best practices to backstop public sector organisations with sensitive data and a growing number of private sector organizations to provide services.
It will also enhance business continuity through cloud and disaster recovery services. The infrastructure has been specifically built to respond to the desire of its growing base of customers and stakeholders. The tier-IV data center will aid disaster recovery, backup and redundancy purposes and significantly enhance and deepen Nigeria’s digital economy drive.
Prof Pantami had earlier identified “Solid Infrastructure” as one of the eight pillars of key instruments to help drive Nigeria towards digital transformation in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (2020-2030) document. This Tier-IV Data center will move Nigeria toward becoming a digitally transformed nation.
According to Professor Muhammad Bello Abubakar, GBB’s chief executive, the company is not competing with other private bodies, “our goal is to collaborate with other private sector ICT companies to enhance digital transformation in Nigeria. So, I invite all of us, to leverage this Tier-IV Data center for the collective benefit of our customers and stakeholders”.
Nigeria edging closer to digital transformation
The tier-IV data center in Kano is the latest step of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to make Nigeria one of the most recognized digital economies in the world. Last month, a National Shared Services Centre, which houses a Cybersecurity Operations Centre, Network Centre & Call Centre, was commissioned.
Last week, The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the passage of the Nigeria Data Protection Bill to the National Assembly for further deliberations. The bill will be transmitted through the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation.
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