Nigerian startups are set to gain relief from rising foreign exchange pressures through a new sovereign cloud initiative aimed at reducing dependence on dollar-priced foreign digital infrastructure.
Galaxy Backbone Limited and the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation, a unit of the National Information Technology Development Agency, said this initiative will provide subsidised cloud services to startups participating in the iHatch programme, allowing them to host data locally and pay for services in naira.
The move comes as Nigerian technology firms face mounting operational pressure following currency devaluation that has sharply increased the cost of imported digital services, including cloud hosting, software subscriptions and data storage.
“Under the arrangement, startups will be onboarded onto Galaxy Backbone’s Galaxy Cloud Platform, which is powered by Uptime-certified Tier III and Tier IV data centres, a nationwide fibre network and cybersecurity infrastructure,” Galaxy Backbone, the country’s infrastructure firm, said in a statement to The PUNCH.
NITDA Director-General Kashifu Abdullahi said the partnership forms part of the agency’s efforts to build a more resilient and globally competitive startup ecosystem through improved access to local digital infrastructure.
Galaxy Backbone Managing Director Ibrahim Adeyanju said the programme will give startups access to enterprise-grade cloud services at subsidised rates while supporting Nigeria’s broader digital sovereignty agenda by encouraging local data hosting.
The company said support for startups would follow a milestone-based structure covering build, validation and scale phases, with cloud credits to be used within a 12-month period before firms migrate to standard subscription or pay-as-you-go billing.
Galaxy Backbone also plans to deploy a dedicated Startup Success Team and automated monitoring tools to improve onboarding and resource management.
A major feature of the programme is naira-denominated billing after the expiration of cloud credits, a structure designed to protect startups from currency swings that have eroded margins across Nigeria’s technology sector.
The iHatch programme, backed by NITDA through the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation, has trained more than 160 startups through 37 hub partners nationwide.
The partnership reflects a broader government push to strengthen indigenous digital infrastructure and retain more data hosting activity within Nigeria as African countries increasingly prioritise data sovereignty and local cloud capacity.
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