Nigeria has opened discussions with Alphabet Inc.’s Google on the deployment of a new undersea cable aimed at strengthening the country’s telecommunications services and the economy’s digital resilience.
The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, gave this hint during an interview with Bloomberg.
Describing the nation’s heavy dependence for telecommunications services and digital economy’s drive on undersea cables that follow similar routes as a single point of failure, the industry expert expressed serious concern that disruptions along these paths could severely affect internet access and digital services.
To boost the nation’s telecoms infrastructure, Inuwa said the government was seeking to streghten existing subsea links that connect Nigeria to Europe by adding new capacity and alternative routes to improve resilience.
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Bloomberg reported that a Google spokesperson had confirmed that the parley with the Nigerian government on the new investment in undersea cable had reached an advanced stage.
Also, the NITDA boss confirmed that the Federal Government was engaging other global technology companies as part of a wider strategy to expand its digital infrastructure.
According to him, beyond improved connectivity through quality infrastructure, Nigeria is also seeking improved investment in cloud computing and high-performance computing capacity to support the adoption of advanced digital tools.
Inuwa maintained that such investments would help position Nigeria as a regional digital hub, improve internet access nationwide, and boost activities in the broad spectrum of the nation’s economy, particularly the digital sub-sector
It would be recalled that Google had earlier announced plans to roll out four new infrastructure hubs in Africa for the purposes of strengthening the continent’s undersea fibre optic cable systems.
