At Innovation Day Nigeria 2025, Schneider Electric unveils four megatrends transforming energy and digital infrastructure in Nigeria and across Africa, emphasising opportunities for growth, innovation, and sustainable development.
Energy technology leader Schneider Electric has outlined four transformative megatrends that are reshaping the global ecosystem: artificial intelligence (AI) and digitization, energy transition, infrastructure development, and global rebalanci...
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ng. Speaking at the company’s Innovation Day Nigeria 2025 in Lagos, Walid Sheta, Schneider Electric’s Zone President for the Middle East and Africa, emphasised how these trends are driving urgent shifts in energy usage and digital infrastructure, particularly in Nigeria and the wider African region.
Central to Sheta’s address was the growing demand for data centre capacity, expected to double in Nigeria even as over 60 million Nigerians remain offline. This disparity highlights the crucial need for both AI-driven energy solutions and energy infrastructure to support expanding digital ecosystems. Schneider Electric’s partnership with NVIDIA in developing AI factories at scale exemplifies efforts to harness automation and sustainability for competitive advantage.
Energy transition remains at the heart of these global shifts. Sheta noted that electricity demand is set to grow by 27% worldwide between 2023 and 2030, with battery storage capacity projected to surge from 86GW to 760GW in the same period. Nigeria’s renewable energy currently constitutes around 10% of its power generation, but national targets aim for 30% by 2030 and between 40% to 55% by 2060. These targets mirror broader objectives across Africa and Asia, where energy independence and economic transformation are intertwined with the push towards electrification.
The company’s commitment to sustainability and efficiency is further reflected in its purpose of empowering customers to maximise energy and resource use, a vision Schneider Electric terms ‘Life Is On’. The firm integrates cutting-edge digital and energy technologies across homes, industries, data centres, and infrastructure, emphasising open standards and partnerships.
Digitization, led by rapid AI adoption, is accelerating faster than previous digital waves. For instance, the uptake of ChatGPT outpaced the World Wide Web by a factor of 70, underlining the pace of technological transformation globally. Technology convergence, where electrical and automation systems meet software, services, and sustainability, enables faster innovation in energy sector management. One practical success of such integration is Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Data Centres solution, which achieved a 35% reduction in energy consumption and 30% lower operational costs at DATAXION, the first Tier III-certified data centre in North Africa, located in Tunisia.
On the infrastructure front, Sheta highlighted the imperative to bolster key sectors including transportation, energy, and roads to empower communities and enhance technical capabilities. This is evident in large-scale projects like Eko Atlantic City in Lagos, where Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Buildings powers 99% of the city’s electricity, delivering scalable energy solutions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 for sustainable cities and communities.
Schneider Electric also equips data centre planners with sophisticated TradeOff Tools, interactive, data-driven applications that aid early-stage decision-making by modelling various scenarios and quantifying technology benefits. These tools help avoid planning obstacles and justify investments, covering areas such as cooling architecture and energy efficiency comparisons.
In summary, Schneider Electric positions itself as a key enabler of Nigeria’s and Africa’s transition to a more electrified, digitised, and sustainable future. The company stresses not just the urgency of embracing these megatrends, but also the opportunities they present for fostering economic development, innovation, and resilience across the region and beyond.
Source: Noah Wire Services
