Africa’s AI ambitions take root in Lagos with first data growth zone

Within Alaro City, which borders Eleko, a coastal community on the fringes of Lagos, Itana is building Africa’s first full-stack AI and data growth zone, a futuristic enclave of servers, startups, and machine learning models. 

Described as a “zone within a zone,” this initiative by Itana is more than just real estate; it’s a strategic infrastructure designed to serve the entire AI value chain. From model developers and data center operators to AI-first application companies, the growth zone offers a purpose-built, resource-dense ecosystem for building and scaling AI solutions on African soil.

Why Africa needs an AI growth zone

Recent data shows that four countries: South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt, account for over 80% of AI and tech startup funding across the continent, with Nigeria alone home to more than 400 active AI firms. However, despite this growing momentum, much of Africa’s AI development still depends heavily on foreign infrastructure, from compute power and data storage to foundational model access and deployment tools.

While countries like Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa have made progress with digital innovation hubs and AI-focused districts, none have created a fully integrated ecosystem specifically tailored for AI development like Itana. Projects such as Egypt’s Knowledge City and Kenya’s Konza Technopolis are advancing smart infrastructure and ICT-led growth, but their focus remains broad. 

In contrast, Itana’s AI and data growth zone offers a vertically integrated environment, bringing together AI-first companies, high-performance compute resources, modular AI-ready data centers, a growing talent pipeline, and flexible, remote-friendly business frameworks, all within a special economic zone. Comparable models exist globally, such as Hub71 in the UAE or Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, but within Africa, Itana represents the most concentrated and purpose-built initiative aimed at accelerating AI innovation.

According to Victor Famubode, head of advisory and government relations at Itana, this local consolidation is essential. “Globally, there’s a fight for certain resources—starting from infrastructure, down to talent and capital,” he explains. “If Africa is going to play competitively in the AI space, then we must aggregate these resources locally.”

Itana’s AI and data growth zone is a direct response to that challenge. It’s designed as a comprehensive hub for both upstream AI companies—those building foundational models—and downstream firms applying those models in industries like healthcare, finance, education, and agriculture. The ambition is to create a full-stack environment where technical talent, computing infrastructure, connectivity, and funding are all available in one place, enabling companies to build, scale, and deploy AI systems within an African context.

Building the stack

The zone’s first pillar is compute. AI development, especially the kind involving large language models (LLMs), requires enormous computational power, typically delivered through Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) clusters. Itana has already partnered with high-compute service providers and is actively seeking more players to offer cloud, on-premise, and GPU-as-a-service capabilities. “We know AI is 95% hardware,” Famubode says. “Without reliable compute infrastructure, we cannot expect consistent innovation.”

Next is data. Itana’s zone is supported by a modular data center partner offering facilities that range from Tier 3 to potential Tier 4 upgrades. These centers not only provide storage for AI training data but also ensure latency-sensitive deployments can happen within the zone itself, crucial for real-time AI applications.

Talent is the third critical piece. Itana is intentionally building a talent pipeline by engaging with local and international partners to develop AI skillsets that match the needs of companies in the zone. “You can’t build and deploy systems if the talent isn’t ready,” Famubode adds. “We think about infrastructure from a talent perspective, too.”

From OpenAI to Open Africa

The zone caters to a wide spectrum of AI organisations. On one end are the LLM builders, akin to OpenAI or Anthropic, developing upstream models that form the backbone of generative AI. On the other end are AI-first application companies that customise or fine-tune models to build products for specific industries.

“We are welcoming both ends,” Famubode says. “We’re not only focused on those building foundational models but also on the companies deploying AI in ways consumers can directly experience—chatbots, recommendation engines, diagnostics tools, fraud detection systems, and more.”

Interestingly, the zone has a particular interest in small language models—compact, efficient systems trained on localised data. These models are cheaper to run, require less infrastructure, and are more easily tailored to African languages and contexts. “Smaller models are ideal for resource-constrained environments like ours,” Famubode notes. “But we’re not excluding the bigger players. We’re building space for both.”

Global Interest, local impact

More than 70% of the companies that have joined Itana’s Special Digital Economic Zone, which houses the AI growth zone,  are foreign or diaspora-owned. Over 30 AI-focused companies are in the pipeline. 20% of these companies are based in Africa, while only around 5% are located in Nigeria. For just $2,000, a business can register in Itana and receive a one-year operating license, with annual renewals costing $1,150. Importantly, companies don’t need to physically relocate; Itana supports remote operations and distributed teams.

Famubode says this flexibility, coupled with Itana’s unique infrastructure proposition, is fueling strong interest from across the globe. “We want green unicorns, AI companies founded here, scaling from here, and solving real African problems while being globally competitive.”

The vision is clear: a continent that doesn’t just import AI solutions but builds them for itself and the world.

Why location still matters

Despite the remote-first design, physical infrastructure remains central to the zone’s long-term ambition. Alaro City, Itana’s host, already provides critical utilities like energy, water, and broadband, essentials for running cooling-intensive data centers and high-performance clusters. As demand grows, Itana plans to scale these resources in partnership with Alaro and other infrastructure providers.

“This is not a soft-launch experiment. We’ve already begun operations,” says Famubode. “The AI growth zone is a continuum; we’re iterating with real demand and real companies.”

The continental stakes

As global powers race to dominate AI, from model training to data control, Africa risks becoming a passive consumer of tools trained on foreign datasets and built with little contextual understanding. Zones like Itana’s are vital in shifting that dynamic.

By creating a full-stack AI ecosystem on the continent, Itana isn’t just enabling local startups; it’s laying the groundwork for Africa’s AI sovereignty. The ripple effects could be profound: job creation, increased foreign direct investment (FDI), exportable innovation, and systems built with Africa in mind.

“We are doing this not just to attract companies,” Famubode concludes, “but to make sure we stay nationally and continentally competitive. We want Africa to be an active participant in shaping the global AI narrative.”

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