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.ng Domain Names Surpass 27,000, NiRA Seeks Support

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Sunday Folayan, NiRA President
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Statistics released on Wednesday by the Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NiRA) revealed that the domain name renewal rate in September 2015 was higher compared to the renewals in other months of the year except in March 2015.

In the report titled, “Domain Name Report – January to September 2015”, NiRA said that the significant increase was with domain name renewals at the third level, while seeking stakeholders support to deepen .ng domain name adoption.

According to Mr. Sunday Folayan, president of NiRA, without the support and efforts of all stakeholders, it will be an uphill task to make .ng popular within and outside the country.

However, in general for September 2015, domain name registration was the lowest in the past four months.

From January to September 2015, NiRA said it recoded a total of 16,191 domain names registered and 11,263 domain names renewed.

“It is worthy to note that from January to September 2015, we have 27,454 domain names, inclusive of new registrations and renewals at both second and third levels,” the Association said in the report.

Similarly, Folayan, NiRA’s president, said, “Our engagement strategy is borne out of the desire to popularize the brand and grow the numbers. The media is very key, as a partner, in promoting the .ng brand. We continue to have interactions and engagements on the social media, print and electronic media, in order to create further visibility of the brand.

This week, I was a guest on the interview segment of TechTrends of ChannelsTV discussing the domain name industry ecosystem. I took time to explain why Nigerians should embrace the .ng brand and register their domain name(s), through NiRA Accredited Registrars.  I elaborated on the benefits of having a .ng domain name, pointing out the competing global brand price of .ng domain name, brand protection, national pride, faster response time and ranking from the search engines.

“We believe that domain names are very similar to real estate. In the coming weeks, .ng will be more visible on the social media and other platforms, as we engage more Nigerians to take advantage and claim their own turf, before other investment savvy individuals do so.

“Have you registered your own .ng domain name? Better late than never, contact a NIRA Accredited Registrar as soon as possible.

He disclosed that as part of NiRA’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, it has instituted the ‘.ng Best Graduating Student in B.Sc Computer Science’ award in selected Federal Universities.

“One of such awards will be made at the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State on the occasion of the Maiden Convocation Ceremony of the university. The award is to recognize, honour and encourage graduating students whose academic achievements display the best level of excellence and distinction in Computer Science at the university each year. NiRA aims to be socially responsible in educating the Nigerian public, especially the young public, creating the awareness and promoting the pride in/of the .ng brand,” he said.

The NiRA president added “The knowledge and opportunities available from being part of the .ng ecosystem is eminent. We recognize the employment opportunities especially for the youth, in growing our economy. We need the involvement of our people from a very young age”.

 


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E-Business

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

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China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.

The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.

In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.

Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.

A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.

Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.

The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.

SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.

Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.

In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.


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Transcorp Hotels Delivers Stellar H1 Results, Declares Over ₦1Bn Dividend

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Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.

The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.

In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.

Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.


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Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

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Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.

Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

 

China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.

The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.

“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.

The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.

It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.

Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.

Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.

Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.

A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.

“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.

Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.

Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.

It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.

Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.

 

 

 


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