Abolaji Adebayo 
The need to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an ethical solution has been highlighted by the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, Nigeria, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani.
Speaking during a courtesy visit by the Executive Committee of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) as a fallout of the Association’s ICT Growth Conference with the theme “Impact of AI On National Development:
Prospects, Policies, and Challenges in Nigeria”, Nnamani noted that people developing ethical solutions for AI are few compared to people producing non-ethical solutions, but have come to take advantage and make money.
Nnamani explained that this trend was not peculiar to Nigeria, but also the reason most developed countries are seeking ways to regulate AI as soon as possible.
“Even the US have a major effort, both in their congress as well as the Executive, to ensure there is work being done on AI Safety and Best Practices, reason being that some companies or individuals are only looking at AI from the value it adds to them, without thinking of what the consequences for any value is.
“One starts looking at it from an ethical standpoint. US and every other country, their governments are actively involved in creating the right policy, to be sure that it is not abused. But more importantly, to be sure they are able to answer it well,” he added.
While applauding the regulators, he said that on the side of regulation in Nigeria, it was a work in progress. He said: “I don’t even see it is a problem or challenge because to the best on my knowledge AI has not gone too far in its adoption in Nigeria.
That means our government, across all areas, need to look back and ask; is there any potential harm from this service or technology? How do we mitigate it? What do we do to stop that harm?
“And these are things they are doing now by asking people to check things, just to be sure that whatever applications you are running, you are running it ethically.”
Nnamani, however, allayed fears of unnecessary job less, noting that the advent of AI will further drive up-skilling of Nigerians. “Some have said AI will take jobs away. So, should we stop?
Truth is that it is not AI taking anybody’s job away, it is just a case of people needing to be retrained and find out how to use AI for better efficiency and costeffectiveness,” he added.
Also speaking on the state of data centres in Nigeria, Nnamani noted that although Nigeria has increased the number of data centers operational in the country in the past few years, it was not yet enough to take care of its bourgeoning data and digital economy.
“Some reports that were published some years back indicated that Nigeria, as at now, should have at least 600 megawatts of IT load, given the size of our economy, population, GDP, and what it should be if we are a truly digital economy.
“Today we have about 30 megawatts. So, you can see the percentage of what we have compared to what we need to have. That is even in terms of the size of IT load which is a metrix we use.
Now in terms of quantity, for instance, if you go to a city like Toronto, last time I checked there were over 30 data centers in that city. “The reality is that we have not started, we are not even anywhere close to starting, if we really understand what needs to be done to have a truly digital economy,” he said.
He observed that the data center sub-sector needed a lot of people with foresight to draw investors and put up infrastructure. “And then, of course, from the government side, it requires a lot of support.
Not just from regulation as a means to extracting income to the regulators, but regulation as actually a way of growth for that industry. Luckily we have very good regulators who understand this part of the telecom industry, so they are as supportive as can be, but we still need a lot.
All these must come together for us to see a fully digital economy, which I believe is the goal of everybody.
