Technology
Airtel Nigeria to Lead Next Phase of Telecoms Growth With Quality of Service Advancements
Airtel Nigeria has unveiled a robust update on a range of network, infrastructure and technology advancements that position the company at the forefront of quality of service leadership in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry. Announced at its first media roundtable of 2026, the updates reflect sustained investments made over the past 12 to 24 months and signal an accelerated push to stay ahead of surging data demand in a rapidly digitising economy.
Speaking to senior editors and industry correspondents, Airtel Nigeria Chief Executive Officer, Dinesh Balsingh, said the company’s strategy is anchored on deliberate scale, depth and resilience.
“Over the last two years, we have invested with discipline and clarity to strengthen our network nationwide. Those investments are now translating into measurable improvements in performance, customer experience and reach, including in underserved and hard to reach communities,” he said. “In 2026, we are accelerating these upgrades because Nigeria’s data appetite is growing, and leadership in this industry will belong to those who plan ahead.”
At the core of Airtel Nigeria’s quality of service drive is the rapid expansion of its network footprint. Since December 2023, the company has increased the number of network sites by 15.5%, adding 2,242 new sites and bringing its total to nearly 16,711 nationwide. Further deployments are planned in 2026 to strengthen coverage, capacity and resilience across urban and rural locations.
Network capacity upgrades have also reached a significant scale. In 2025, Airtel completed capacity enhancements on 30% of its sites, covering over 5032 sites nationwide. Today, 99% of Airtel Nigeria’s sites deliver high-speed 4G mobile broadband, establishing the operator as a full nationwide 4G network. This year, capacity upgrades are being extended to more sites to sustain performance as data usage continues to rise.
According to Chief Technology Officer, Harmanpreet Singh Dhillon, spectrum depth and optimisation remain critical to network quality. “We have increased our 4G spectrum by 10MHz and we are actively optimising our holdings. These actions allow us to support higher data throughput, better speeds and more consistent service, especially in high-traffic areas,” he said.
Airtel Nigeria is also accelerating its 5G rollout. Over the last three months, the company has more than doubled the number of active 5G sites. The accelerated 5G upgrade happening now will connect the top 20 Nigerian cities to high-speed 5G networks, with a significant part of Airtel’s network in these cities becoming 5G-enabled in the coming year.
Beyond terrestrial infrastructure, Airtel is extending connectivity through space-based solutions. The company has established and signed partnerships with satellite providers OneWeb and Starlink, enabling enterprise-grade connectivity for businesses in remote locations, hard-to-reach areas and operational outposts. Recently, Airtel announced Nigeria’s first Direct-to-Cell partnership with Starlink, a breakthrough that will allow customers to remain connected while travelling through deep remote areas and enable small rural communities to access Airtel’s digital and fintech services.
The backbone supporting these services continues to expand. Airtel Nigeria has built an extensive fibre footprint across almost all states, developed through years of sustained deployment. Following the announcement to double capital expenditure last year, the company committed to expanding its fibre network by 25%, and intensive rollout activity is ongoing across cities and states. Airtel has also confirmed plans to extend its fibre footprint even further, both within major cities and between states.
A pivotal national milestone is also on the horizon. Nigeria currently relies on a single internet submarine cable landing and breakout point in Lagos. Airtel Nigeria has announced that it will launch a second internet breakout from the South of Nigeria, leveraging the 2Africa submarine cable. In partnership with 2Africa, Airtel will shortly begin carrying internet breakout traffic from Kwa Ibo in Akwa Ibom State.
“This will create a faster and alternative path for large parts of the North and South, and improve resilience for the entire ecosystem. Airtel is proud to take the lead in making this happen,” Balsingh said.
Underpinning these advances is a robust IT and cloud backbone. Airtel Nigeria operates an enterprise-grade private cloud with thousands of virtual machines, managing massive storage and compute power across locations. The infrastructure includes large GPU clusters, supporting AI-driven applications such as fraud detection, intelligent network self-healing and advanced customer analytics. The company recently announced the upcoming launch of its hyperscaler-ready 38 megawatt data centre in Eko Atlantic. This is designed for Nigeria’s next phase of digital growth, powered by AI.
From a customer access perspective, Airtel Nigeria maintains one of the largest retail footprints in the country. Its products and services are available in over 200,000 outlets nationwide, supported by more than 4,000 exclusive shops across all local government areas and 250 flagship stores.
Balsingh added that, “Quality of service today is about resilience, redundancy and intelligence, and that is what Airtel is delivering. From fibre to cloud to satellite-enabled connectivity, we are building a platform that allows Nigerian businesses to scale with confidence, regardless of location.”
He reaffirmed Airtel Nigeria’s long-term commitment to the country. “Our focus is consistent investment, disciplined execution and deep confidence in Nigeria’s future,” he said.
Aside from Singh Dhillon, other members of the Airtel Nigeria leadership on hand with subject matter expertise at the roundtable included Director, Airtel Business, Ogo Ofomata; Director, Marketing, Ismail Adeshina; Director, Information Technology, Kemi Ariyo; and Director, Corporate Communications and CSR, Femi Adeniran.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The reach of the Meta Business Agent is being expanded to Instagram and other platforms of the social media giant.
Meta Business Agent is an artificial intelligence (AI) that allows business owners to attend to customers’ needs with ease.
Customers expect instant responses, but no team can be everywhere at once. This innovation handles such without hassles.
It helps businesses to answer questions specific to the business, makes product recommendations from the catalogue, books appointments, qualifies incoming leads, and closes sales.
More than one million businesses are already using a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger to respond to customers around the clock.
“We’re now expanding our Business Agent to businesses big and small globally, so within minutes you can have yours up and running, responding in your customer’s local language using your tone,” Meta said in a statement.
“We’re also expanding these agents to Instagram since businesses connect with their customers there, too. Businesses can activate their Business Agent here. Getting started with the Business Agent is free. In the coming months, businesses will access the agent through our paid subscription offerings, with options for businesses of every size,” it added.
Meta also stated that it is making it simpler for people to discover businesses powered by a Meta Business Agent directly on WhatsApp. It noted that starting soon, people will be able to find businesses by typing their name in the Search bar, or by sharing their phone number or contact card in chats with friends and family. This way, when more customers reach out, they get a quick, helpful response.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Lagos State government plans to expand the city’s data centre capacity to over 250 megawatts (MW) by 2030 as part of efforts to strengthen its digital infrastructure ecosystem.
This was disclosed by the state’s Commissioner for Innovation, Science, and Technology, Mr Olatubosun Alake, at the launch of the Kasi Cloud LOS1 data centre facility in Lekki. Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) invested in Kasi Cloud through an $8 million convertible loan note in 2021.
Mr Alake said Lagos already hosts nearly three-quarters of Nigeria’s commercial data centre capacity, adding that the government intends to expand its infrastructure footprint significantly over the next five years.
“There are about 146 additional megawatt data centres planned in the pipeline,” he said. “We envisage that by 2030, we would have over 250 megawatts of data centre capacity in Lagos, three times the current capacity growth.”
The expansion comes as demand for cloud services, AI computing power, and local data storage continues to grow across Nigeria’s digital economy, with Lagos at the forefront, housing thousands of businesses and startups.
Mr Alake said the Kasi Cloud facility represents Lagos’ entry into “large-scale hyperscale AI infrastructure,” signalling the state’s ambition to evolve beyond being known primarily as a startup hub into a major centre for digital infrastructure and AI computing.
“Lagos is no longer simply a startup city,” he said. “It is an infrastructure city.”
The Kasi LOS1 facility is designed as a 40MW hyperscale data centre campus, beginning operations with an initial 7.2MW IT load.
According to Mr Alake, the facility includes advanced GPU computing infrastructure powered by Nvidia H100 and H200 chips, alongside liquid cooling systems and cloud infrastructure services designed to support AI workloads.
The Lagos State government believes such infrastructure will become critical as AI adoption accelerates globally.
Mr Alake said the state is investing in fibre optic networks, smart city technologies, university innovation programmes, and digital government systems to prepare for the transition.
“The AI economy is going to require hundreds of megawatts,” he said. “The market has already made its decision about where digital infrastructure belongs.”
On his part, Mr Johnson Agbogun, co-founder and chief executive officer of Kasi Cloud, said the project was built to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on foreign cloud infrastructure and give African businesses more control over how their data and AI systems are developed.
“Nigerian enterprises are currently spending $850 million every year on foreign cloud infrastructure,” he said. “Every naira spent abroad on cloud and AI infrastructure helps build capabilities somewhere else.”
He added that the facility runs GPU-powered AI workloads from local enterprises and described the Lekki campus as “the beginning of Nigeria’s AI factory.”
“As artificial intelligence reshapes economies globally, the nations that control their own compute infrastructure and data will be the ones positioned to lead,” added Mr Kolawole Owodunni, NSIA’s Executive Director and Chief Information Officer.
The goal of Google Search has always been simple: to help you ask anything on your mind. Whether it is a quick fact to help with your daily hustle or a complex question about starting a new business, Nigerians rely on Search every single day.
Over the last year, Google has rapidly reimagined what Search can do with AI. The momentum has been incredible—just one year after its debut, AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users globally. As people have realised just how much more Search can do for them, they are searching more than ever before, reaching an all-time high in search queries last quarter. Today at Google I/O, Google shared the next step in its journey to bring together the best of a search engine with the best of AI.
To power this next chapter, Google is officially upgrading Search with Gemini 3.5 Flash as the new default model in AI Mode for everyone worldwide. Delivering sustained frontier performance for agents and coding, Gemini 3.5 Flash is the engine driving the new era of AI-powered Search. Because curiosity doesn’t always fit into standard keywords, this powerful AI model is transforming Search from a tool that simply finds information into an intelligent platform capable of reasoning, monitoring the web, and executing complex tasks on your behalf.
Here is a look at the four biggest AI-powered announcements coming to Google Search:
1. A Completely Reimagined Search Box
Google is introducing the biggest upgrade to its Search box in over 25 years. Now completely reimagined with AI, the new intelligent Search box dynamically expands to give you the space to describe exactly what you need. It goes beyond simple autocomplete by anticipating your intent and helping you phrase your questions. You are no longer limited to typing; you can now search using text, images, files, videos, or even Chrome tabs as inputs. Additionally, Google is making it easier to ask follow-up questions directly from an AI Overview, flowing naturally into a conversational back-and-forth where your context stays with you as you explore.
2. New Search Agents That Work in the Background
We are entering the era of Search agents, where you can create and manage multiple AI agents directly in Search. Google is launching “Information agents” that operate in the background 24/7. These agents intelligently scan the web—alongside fresh data on finance, shopping, and sports—to monitor for changes related to your specific questions. For example, if you are house hunting, your agent will continuously scan the market and notify you the moment a listing matches your exact criteria. Furthermore, Search is expanding its agentic booking capabilities; you can soon share specific criteria (like a late-night private karaoke room) and Search will pull the latest pricing and links to finish booking. For certain categories, Google can even call businesses on your behalf.
3. Custom Mini-Apps and Visuals Built Just for You
Search is no longer just returning links; it is now building the ideal response in the perfect format for your query entirely on the fly. By bringing the power of Google Antigravity and the agentic coding capabilities of Gemini 3.5 Flash into Search, users will get a custom “Generative UI.” This means Search can design custom layouts, interactive visuals, tables, graphs, or simulations in real-time. But it goes a step further: if you have an ongoing task, like establishing a new health routine, Search can actually code a custom fitness tracker or mini-app for you. These custom dashboards tap into real-time sources like live maps and weather, giving you a personalised tracker you can return to again and again.
4. Expanded Personal Intelligence Without a Subscription
For AI to be truly helpful, it shouldn’t just know the world’s information—it should understand your personal context, too. To achieve this, Google is expanding Personal Intelligence in AI Mode to more people in nearly 200 countries and territories across 98 languages. Crucially, this is being rolled out with no subscription required. Users can securely connect apps like Gmail, Google Photos, and soon Google Calendar directly to Search. Designed with transparency and choice at its heart, this allows you to safely ask Search to find information buried in your own personal files, always keeping you in complete control of your connected data.
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