The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, participated in the closing keynote panel session at the Datacloud Global Congress 2026 held in Cannes, France, where he joined global leaders to discuss “The Role of Digital Infrastructure in National Economies.”

The high-level discussion, moderated by IDCA Chairman & CEO, Mehdi Paryavi, explored the role of digital infrastructure in economic growth, AI strategy, digital sovereignty, workforce development, and national competitiveness. The session featured distinguished speakers including Ali Amur Al Shidhani, Undersecretary for Communications and Information Technology, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT), Oman, Buddy Rizer, the Chief Development Officer at IDCA and the NITDA Director General.

During the discussion, Inuwa underscored digital infrastructure as a critical enabler of economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and national development. He highlighted Nigeria’s ongoing efforts under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to diversify the economy through digitalisation, technology-led development, and strategic digital infrastructure expansion.

Speaking on Nigeria’s policy direction, the DG emphasized the National Cloud Policy, which promotes cloud adoption across government institutions and prioritises the hosting of government data within Nigeria to strengthen digital sovereignty, improve public service delivery, stimulate the domestic cloud ecosystem, and deepen trust in digital systems.

He further highlighted the establishment of a Technical Working Group comprising ecosystem players, industry stakeholders, and hyperscalers to guide Nigeria’s sovereign cloud adoption agenda, develop technical standards, strengthen governance frameworks, and mobilise investments required to accelerate trusted cloud infrastructure development.

The DG stressed the need for increased investments in data centres, cloud infrastructure, broadband connectivity, and emerging technologies to unlock Nigeria’s digital economy ambitions and position the country as a leading digital hub in Africa. He noted that expanding broadband penetration, advancing artificial intelligence development, and deliberate policy implementation remain critical to accelerating innovation, enabling scalable digital services, and driving economic transformation.

Inuwa also showcased Nigeria’s comparative advantages as an emerging digital investment destination, citing the country’s large and youthful population, vibrant innovation ecosystem, resilient entrepreneurial culture, growing digital talent base, and ongoing reforms aimed at creating an enabling environment for digital infrastructure investments.

He reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to fostering strategic partnerships and mobilising investments that accelerate the development of cloud infrastructure, data centres, connectivity, artificial intelligence, and digital public infrastructure to strengthen the country’s position as a globally competitive digital economy.

The Datacloud Global Congress convenes policymakers, investors, hyperscalers, cloud providers, data centre operators, and digital infrastructure stakeholders from around the world to shape the future of global digital infrastructure and investment.

Update news