Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has entered into a strategic partnership with Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) to provide subsidised sovereign cloud services to Nigerian startups participating in the iHatch programme.
The collaboration, facilitated through the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), is aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s digital ecosystem by promoting data sovereignty, enhancing digital inclusion, and accelerating indigenous innovation.
Under the agreement, startups in the iHatch programme will be onboarded onto GBB’s Galaxy Cloud Platform (GxCP), a sovereign infrastructure powered by Uptime-certified Tier III and Tier IV data centres, a nationwide fibre network, and advanced cybersecurity systems. The initiative is expected to provide startups with secure, enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure at subsidised rates, enabling them to build, validate, and scale their solutions while hosting data locally.
In a joint statement by Mrs. Hadiza Umar, Director, Corporate Communications and Media Relations at NITDA, and Chidi Okpala, Head of Corporate Communications at GBB, both organisations said the partnership represents a significant milestone in Nigeria’s digital transformation journey and a deliberate effort to strengthen the country’s innovation ecosystem through accessible, sovereign cloud infrastructure.
Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the partnership underscores the agency’s commitment to nurturing a resilient and globally competitive startup ecosystem by expanding access to critical digital infrastructure.
In his remarks, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of GBB, Professor Ibrahim Adeyanju, noted that the initiative would empower startups to innovate and grow without the burden of high infrastructure costs, while also strengthening Nigeria’s digital sovereignty and economic resilience.
To ensure sustainability, the programme will adopt a tiered, milestone-based model in which cloud credits are released across three phases of a startup’s growth, Build, Validate, and Scale. The credits will be valid for 12 months, after which beneficiaries will transition to standard subscription or pay-as-you-go billing models.
As part of the support framework, GBB will deploy a dedicated Startup Success Team to guide onboarding and drive adoption, alongside automated monitoring tools to help startups optimise resource usage. Notably, all post-credit billing will be conducted in Nigerian Naira to shield startups from foreign exchange volatility.
Speaking on the broader impact, GBB’s General Manager for Strategic Partnerships, Abdul Malik Suleiman, described the collaboration as a deliberate effort to bridge the gap between infrastructure and innovation.
Similarly, ONDI National Coordinator, Victoria Fabunmi, said the integration of sovereign cloud infrastructure into the iHatch programme would significantly enhance startups’ capacity to scale and compete globally.
The iHatch programme has already trained over 160 startups across 37 hub partners nationwide. Stakeholders say the new partnership is set to deepen that impact by accelerating innovation and strengthening Nigeria’s growing digital economy.
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