Five Nigerian cloud companies are in talks with the government to become their preferred choice for hosting sensitive government data, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told TechCabal. The lobbying efforts are based on a 2019 National Cloud Computing Policy that makes a case for local cloud service providers as a first choice consideration.
If successful, the talks would be a good starting point for increased adoption of local cloud options amid rising costs due to the naira devaluationsome government agencies spend up to $500,000 monthly on cloud services, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
A few local cloud companies are also considering creating a consortium having begun talks in April 2024, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said, declining to share names.
For these companies, getting the governments buy-in will help encourage private companies to host their data locally.
Over 70% of government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) host their data on cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft Azure, according to one 2021 report.
