From megawatts to prosperity: Rural electrification in age of AI- REA MD Abba Aliyu

A displacement is taking spot successful the planetary economy. For overmuch of the past decade, discussions astir artificial quality centred connected algorithms, semiconductors, GPUs, and data.

In this piece, Abba Aliyu, Managing Director of Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency (REA), explores the intersection of AI, energy infrastructure, and Nigeria’s way to prosperity arsenic portion of a two-part series.

In 2026, different origin has moved decisively to the centre of the conversation: electricity. AI companies are discovering that billions of dollars’ worthy of GPUs are of constricted worth if sufficient, reliable energy cannot beryllium delivered to them.

In presumption of this, immoderate of the world’s largest exertion companies are opening to behave progressively similar vigor companies, contracting atomic generation, investing successful caller reactors, processing dedicated state generation, acquiring oregon securing powerfulness infrastructure, investing successful storage, and locating information centres according to the availability of electricity.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), planetary data-centre energy depletion is projected to scope astir 945 TWh by 2030, approxi...