A bold new chapter in Africa’s tech story is unfolding: Cassava Technologies, backed by Nvidia, is raising up to US$700 million to supercharge its data-centre footprint across the continent and make advanced artificial intelligence more accessible — not just to big firms, but to non-profits and smaller organisations, too, as reported by Bloomberg.
Table of Contents
Building the Compute Power of Tomorrow
Cassava, the pan-African firm founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, plans to deploy high-performance Nvidia chips in multiple data centres from South Africa to Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco.
The company’s vision is not just about having more data centres — it’s about creating AI factories, designed specifically to train, fine-tune, and run sophisticated AI models locally.
By going this route, Cassava aims to reduce dependence on overseas infrastructure, help African innovators build with local data, and keep compute power within the continent — which matters for data sovereignty, cost, and speed.
Democratising AI: Not Just for Big Corporations
What makes this more than just another infrastructure play is Cassava’s inclusive ambition. Rather than serving only well-resourced businesses, the plan includes providing subsidised or more affordable AI access to NGOs, social enterprises, and community-led projects.
A key partner in that drive is the Rockefeller Foundation, which will help Cassava grant GPU capacity to non-profits across countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia..
These organisations are already working on critical issues — from improving maternal health to empowering smallholder farmers — and with more AI capacity, their local models and solutions could scale faster.
Hardy Pemhiwa, Cassava’s President & Group CEO, puts it simply: Africans should be builders of AI, not just consumers.
Big Bet, Big Impact — and Big Challenges
Cassava’s plan is ambitious on many fronts. To hit its goals, it will:
- Raise up to US$700 million via a mix of equity and debt.
- Deploy 12,000 Nvidia GPUs across Africa over the next few years, starting with 3,000 in South Africa.
- Use its pan-African fibre-optic network, built over years, to link its data centres and provide ultra-low latency services.
- Make its data centres energy efficient, mindful of the significant electricity demands of AI compute.
But it’s not without risk. Building and scaling such infrastructure requires:
- Financial discipline — raising capital is one thing; deploying it wisely is another.
- Regulatory navigation — data privacy laws, cross-border compliance, and national AI strategies vary widely.
- Power and cooling — high-performance computing consumes a lot of electricity, and inefficient setups could be prohibitively expensive.
- Talent — the continent needs more data scientists, engineers, and operators who can work at the cutting edge of AI.
Why It Matters for Africa
This Cassava–Nvidia initiative could be transformational for Africa’s digital economy:
- Sovereignty: By hosting AI workloads on local soil, African organisations retain control over their data and models.
- Innovation: Easier access to AI compute could unlock breakthroughs in sectors that matter most — health, agriculture, education, climate resilience.
- Equity: The plan’s inclusive design — especially for non-profits — helps share the benefits of AI across society, not just in boardrooms.
- Ecosystem building: With GPU-as-a-Service, researchers and startups won’t need to make massive upfront investments. That lowers the barrier to entry for local talent.
Strive Masiyiwa himself has framed this as more than business — building, “digital infrastructure for the AI economy” is central to how Africa taps into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Looking Ahead
Cassava’s roadmap suggests the first AI factory will go live by June 2025 in South Africa. Over the next few years, the network will grow, likely touching more cities and countries as part of a broader ambition to build a local, sovereign AI backbone for Africa.
The company has also launched a Multi-Model Exchange (CAIMEx) for African mobile network operators, allowing them to access popular models — like Anthropic’s Claude or Google’s Gemini — via a single, managed platform hosted in Cassava’s AI infrastructure, according to Cassava Technologies.
That means telcos in Africa can onboard world-class AI capabilities without complicated, expensive integrations.
If everything goes to plan, Cassava’s push could reshape how AI is built and used across the continent — no longer a tool imported from elsewhere, but one that’s rooted, trained, and deployed in Africa.
Join Our Social Media Channels:
WhatsApp: NaijaEyes
Facebook: NaijaEyes
Twitter: NaijaEyes
Instagram: NaijaEyes
TikTok: NaijaEyes
READ THE LATEST EDUCATION NEWS
