Itana has launched Africa’s first full-stack artificial intelligence (AI) and data growth zone inside Alaro City on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria. The zone offers a purpose-built environment where startups, researchers, and data infrastructure providers can develop and scale AI solutions on African soil.
Unlike broader smart city projects such as Kenya’s Konza Technopolis or Egypt’s Knowledge City, Itana’s initiative focuses exclusively on the full AI value chain—spanning foundational model development, modular data centers, and applied AI companies working in fields like finance, healthcare, and agriculture.
“We’re not just building real estate,” said Victor Famubode, Head of Advisory and Government Relations at Itana. “We’re building the infrastructure for AI sovereignty.”
The zone prioritizes three core pillars:
- Compute: Itana is partnering with GPU-as-a-service providers to power AI workloads, particularly large language models (LLMs).
- Data: A modular data center ecosystem supports real-time, latency-sensitive AI deployments and training.
- Talent: A dedicated talent pipeline is being developed through partnerships with local and global institutions to ensure workforce readiness.
Itana is attracting both upstream AI companies building foundational models and downstream firms applying AI tools. The zone also emphasizes the development of small language models tailored to African languages and contexts, making them cheaper, more energy-efficient, and locally relevant.
More than 70% of companies registering in Itana’s Special Digital Economic Zone are diaspora- or foreign-owned, while around 30 AI-focused firms are in the pipeline. Businesses can register remotely for just $2,000 and maintain annual operations at $1,150, with no requirement to relocate.
As global competition in AI accelerates, Itana’s initiative aims to position Africa as an AI creator—not just a consumer. The infrastructure is already operational, and with its remote-first structure, the project enables distributed innovation while maintaining critical on-ground assets like high-speed internet, energy supply, and data cooling systems.
“Africa shouldn’t wait to be invited to the AI table,” Famubode said. “We’re building it right here.”
