In a bold move to deepen African innovation, Cassava Technologies has teamed up with The Rockefeller Foundation to expand access to powerful artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the continent. The partnership will provide GPU-enabled infrastructure to grantees in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe — a major step toward building a more inclusive, homegrown AI ecosystem.
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Why This Partnership Matters
Africa may be home to nearly one-fifth of the global population, but it currently holds less than 1 per cent of the world’s data-centre capacity, according to the Rockefeller Foundation. Without local access to high-performance computing, AI developers in Africa are often forced to rely on expensive overseas infrastructure — a barrier to innovation, especially for resource-constrained NGOs.
Cassava’s emerging AI “factory” changes that. Through its GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), built on secure data centres powered by NVIDIA technology, local organisations will now be able to run complex AI models — like large-language models, image recognisers, or speech-to-text systems — without shipping data abroad.
Hardy Pemhiwa, President and Group CEO of Cassava, said this partnership will empower African innovators to build solutions that reflect local data, local languages, and local realities.
For the Rockefeller Foundation, the deal aligns with its mission: to make high-tech advances work for underserved communities. “If we get AI right in Africa, we can help Africans create jobs, advance opportunity, and pursue their dreams,” said Dr Rajiv J. Shah, President of the foundation.
How NGOs Will Use the New Computing Capacity
The immediate beneficiaries of this collaboration are carefully selected grantees already working on high-impact development issues. Here are a few:
- Digital Green, active in Ethiopia and Kenya, uses its AI assistant Farmer.Chat to deliver real-time, climate-smart farming advice in local languages. With GPU access on the continent, they hope to dramatically improve the quality of speech recognition, translation, and image-based recommendations.
- Jacaranda Health in Kenya is building culturally tuned, multilingual AI tools to reach mothers and infants with life-saving guidance. The local compute resource will help them refine models and scale their services far more affordably.
- Rising Academies, which operates in Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, leverages AI to help students learn literacy and numeracy. They have already reported major time savings for teachers (a 60% reduction in grading time) and higher engagement among pupils.
These NGOs will not only get access to machines; they will gain the capacity to build AI in Africa, for Africa — ensuring that solutions are sensitive to local culture, language, and development needs.
Bigger Picture: Building Africa’s AI Infrastructure
This partnership is not just about helping NGOs — it’s a landmark moment in Africa’s AI infrastructure journey. Cassava’s GPUaaS is part of a broader strategy to build what they call an AI Factory: large-scale, secure data centres located across Africa, designed to support businesses, governments, researchers, and social-sector organisations.
Recent reports suggest Cassava plans to upgrade its data centres in South Africa, with further expansions planned for Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco. These facilities will be powered by NVIDIA supercomputers, giving local actors access to world-class compute power.
At the Africa Tech Festival in 2025, Cassava officially launched its GPUaaS platform. On that same occasion, Strive Masiyiwa — Cassava’s founder and chairman — revealed that the company had acquired 12,000 NVIDIA GPUs to deploy in its data centre network.
By positioning themselves as the first NVIDIA Cloud Partner in Africa, Cassava is signalling that African organisations don’t have to rely on foreign cloud providers; they can train, run, and deploy AI locally, with sovereignty, security, and speed.
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
While the potential is enormous, this is not without its hurdles:
- Infrastructure readiness. Building high-performance data centres across Africa remains capital-intensive. Cassava’s network is growing, but scaling to serve many thousands of grantees will require careful planning, ongoing investment, and reliable power.
- Skills gap. Even with compute access, many African NGOs may lack the in-house AI expertise to fully exploit GPUs. Capacity building — via training, mentorship, and partnerships — will be critical.
- Governance and ethics. As AI becomes more embedded in social-sector work, questions about data privacy, bias, and ethical use arise. Ensuring that AI tools are built and used responsibly will be key to trust.
Yet, those challenges also offer tremendous opportunities. By enabling local organisations to control their compute infrastructure, this partnership could catalyse the development of African-origin AI models — ones that understand African languages, contexts, and challenges. That, in turn, will help create a sustainable, self-determined AI ecosystem on the continent.
The Stakes: Why It’s a Big Deal for Nigeria (and Africa)
For countries like Nigeria, this could be transformative. NGOs working in agriculture, education, health, or climate could access serious AI compute locally — without sending sensitive data abroad or paying exorbitant costs. That means faster, more relevant AI solutions for farmers, students, mothers, and communities.
Moreover, by anchoring AI infrastructure in Africa, Cassava and Rockefeller are helping close the data sovereignty gap. Local data stays local, decisions are made by Africans for Africans, and more of the value generated by AI can be captured within the continent.
Philanthropy meets technology here — and that blend could shift Africa into a new era of innovation.
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