Africa’s data centre industry is entering a new phase of evolution, driven by rising demand for artificial intelligence applications. As global Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates, data infrastructure across the continent is under pressure to modernise, and operators are beginning to respond.
New findings from the Africa Data Centres Association Insider Survey 2025 show that 36% of providers have already deployed AI-capable infrastructure, including dedicated high-performance computing racks and advanced cooling systems. Another 35% plan to implement such technologies within the next year.
Together, these figures suggest a growing recognition of AI as a critical driver of future data centre demand. From training complex machine learning models to powering real-time analytics for clients in finance, logistics, and health, AI workloads are set to transform how data infrastructure is built and operated.
Yet the transition is far from complete. While 71% of respondents are either AI-enabled or preparing for deployment, the vast majority of operators are still navigating fundamental challenges, chief among them unreliable power supply, high operational costs, and a shortage of skilled professionals.
AI-ready data centres demand significantly more from their environment. Greater power density, sophisticated cooling, and uninterrupted energy supply are prerequisites. For many African markets, these requirements clash with persistent infrastructure limitations.
In countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, where energy reliability remains a core barrier, scaling into AI-capable infrastructure is a complex, capital-intensive undertaking.
Although only 16% of respondents believe traditional infrastructure remains sufficient, the readiness gap is real. Most operators are still in transition, balancing long-term technological alignment with short-term constraints around financing and feasibility.
The findings also suggest that AI investment will require more than just hardware upgrades. Deep coordination between cloud providers, data centre operators, and public sector actors will be necessary to foster an enabling environment, one that can support the energy, connectivity, and policy requirements for sustainable AI infrastructure at scale.
As the continent’s demand for digital services rises, and with AI moving rapidly from innovation to implementation, the readiness of Africa’s data centre ecosystem will play a defining role in whether African markets can participate fully in the global AI economy.
