South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya hold nearly half of Africa's data centres
A new Nairametrics ranking shows AI infrastructure is concentrated in three countries, with South Africa leading at 62 facilities.
Nairametrics has published a ranking of the top 15 African countries by number of data centres in 2026, revealing that nearly half of Sub-Saharan Africa's data centre facilities sit in just three countries: South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.
The ranking, published on 5 August 2026, draws on Intelpoint data and an IMF-linked dataset to count facilities across the continent. South Africa tops the list with 61–62 facilities, followed by Nigeria with 25 and Kenya with 19. The counts drop sharply outside the top hubs — Ethiopia and Mozambique each have around six facilities, while Zambia has three.
The article frames data centres as the physical backbone for AI models, cloud services, chatbots, and digital platforms. "South Africa is, by a wide margin, Sub-Saharan Africa's data center capital with 62 facilities," the piece states. Intelpoint's February 2026 analysis counts 249 data centres in Africa, with South Africa accounting for 25% of them.
The concentration extends beyond facility counts. A separate Nairametrics report on Africa's data centre capacity notes that the continent's operational capacity exceeds 500 MW, with about 890 MW in the pipeline. South Africa accounts for more than 60% of operational capacity, even as investment spreads to Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Morocco.
Nairametrics ties the data centre boom to venture capital flows, noting that Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt together captured roughly 84% of Africa's US$2.2 billion in VC funding in 2024. "Nigeria is Africa's second-largest data center market by facility count and one of the four countries, alongside Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa, that together absorbed roughly 84 percent of the continent's US$2.2 billion in venture capital funding in 2024," the article states.
Africa's data centre demand could increase five-fold by 2030, requiring roughly US$20 billion in investment, according to a Knight Frank-linked analysis cited by Nairametrics. As of mid-2025, Africa had around 223–249 data centres across 38 countries, compared to more than 11,800 globally.
Nigeria is positioning itself as a West African data hub. Kasi Cloud announced a 100 MW data centre project in 2026 targeting reduction of Nigeria's roughly US$850 million annual cloud spend, while Equinix is investing US$22 million in a Lagos facility set to open in Q1 2026. New Nigerian builds reference the Data Protection Act 2023 and Uptime Institute Tier III standards.
