Nigeria Is in Advanced Talks With Google to Build a New Subsea Cable
A representative for Google confirmed that the "talks were at an advanced stage but declined to comment further."
Nigeria is in advanced talks with Google to build a new subsea cable, a move that could significantly strengthen the country’s digital backbone and push its ambition of becoming Africa’s leading digital hub much closer to reality.
The conversation was confirmed this week by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), during an interview in Abuja. His message was clear: Nigeria’s internet infrastructure needs serious reinforcement if the country is going to support a $1 trillion digital economy.
A representative for Google also confirmed to Bloomberg that the "talks were at an advanced stage but declined to comment further."
Right now, most of Nigeria’s international internet capacity relies on cables that follow similar routes into Europe. That may sound fine until one of those cables gets damaged, and then everything from banking apps to video calls to business operations across the country pauses. Abdullahi described this setup as a “single point of failure,” and he’s not wrong. One fault, and the ripple effects travel fast through the entire economy.
Damilare Odedina
Why This Matters More Than Ever
Across Africa, internet disruptions have become uncomfortably common. From accidental cable cuts to deliberate vandalism, connectivity blackouts have shut down payment systems, delayed businesses, and cut millions of people off from work and services.
In a continent with the world’s fastest-growing population and an exploding tech scene, unstable connectivity is more than an inconvenience. It’s a serious bottleneck for innovation, investment, and access to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.
Google already understands this. In September, the company announced plans for four new infrastructure hubs across Africa, designed to connect its latest underwater fibre-optic systems and expand high-speed internet access across the continent. The Nigeria project would build directly on that vision.
And it’s not just Google. Nigeria is in talks with several other global tech players, all part of a broader push to attract investment into cloud computing, data centres, and high-capacity networks that can support everything from fintech to AI startups.
The Bigger Picture: Africa’s Undersea Internet Revolution
This isn’t happening in isolation. Last month, Meta completed the core of its massive 2Africa subsea cable system the largest in the world connecting East and West Africa to Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. The system spans three continents, lands in 33 countries, and is designed to serve more than 3 billion people, including over 1.4 billion in Africa.
On the West African route alone, the cable runs from England down to South Africa, touching Senegal, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, DRC, and Angola along the way. With 21 terabits per second per fibre pair and eight fibre pairs on the main trunk, the technical capacity dwarfs anything Africa has had before.
On the continent, Nigeria is also investing heavily. Through a partnership with the World Bank, the federal government has committed $2 billion toward laying 90,000 kilometres of fibre infrastructure nationwide a critical foundation for connecting communities, businesses, and public services.
But the Risks Are Real
Subsea cables may be the backbone of the modern digital economy, but they’re also fragile. According to the International Telecommunications Union, between 150 and 200 cable cuts happen globally every year, disrupting everything from telecoms to financial systems.
This is why multiple routes, multiple cables, and multiple partners are no longer optional. It’s essential. The proposed Google cable would give Nigeria another critical pathway to the global internet and reduce its exposure to outages that can cost the economy millions in hours.
The Takeaway
Nigeria’s discussions with Google are about much more than faster internet. They’re about economic resilience, digital sovereignty, and positioning Africa’s largest economy for the future. If the deal moves forward, it won’t just strengthen Nigeria’s connectivity it will reshape how the country competes in the global digital economy.
Emmanuel Umahi
