Strive Masiyiwa is the founder of Cassava Technologies.

Cassava Technologies intends to build Africa's first Artificial Intelligence (AI) factory, a secure data centre equipped with NVIDIA AI computing technology.

The company announced the move today, saying that it will provide African businesses, governments, and researchers with modern AI computing capability, allowing them to develop smarter AI products, optimise operations, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing world.

“It provides the supercomputers and software needed to train AI while keeping data within Africa’s borders,” said Cassava.

Cassava stated that it intends to deploy NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI software utilising NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) reference architectures at its data centres in South Africa by June 2025, with expansion planned for its additional data centres in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria.

It elaborated: “Cassava’s AI Factory will leverage the company’s pan-African high-speed, ultra-low-latency, fibre-optic network with sustainable data centres to deliver AI as a Service (AIaaS).”

Cassava added that its ‘world-class’ data centres are designed to be energy efficient, using less electricity to power AI computing workloads.

It went to say: “NVIDIA GPU-based supercomputers will power the AI factory, enabling faster AI model training, fine-tuning and advanced inference capabilities.

“Cassava aims to be the first to introduce these accelerated computing platforms to Africa as an NCP, playing a crucial role in the continent’s AI ecosystem.”

According to the company, the Cassava AI Factory will ensure businesses and researchers have access to the AI computing power required to scale, boost productivity and power innovation.

“By using this secure, high-performance AI Factory, African businesses and governments can develop local solutions to local challenges, enabling Africans to build, train, scale and deploy AI in a secure environment compliant with global and local regulations,” said the company.

Strive Masiyiwa, founder and chairman of Cassava, commented: “Building digital infrastructure for the AI economy is a priority if Africa is to take full advantage of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Our AI Factory provides the infrastructure for this innovation to scale, empowering African businesses, startups and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure to turn their bold ideas into real-world breakthroughs — and now, they don’t have to look beyond Africa to get it.

“Collaborating with NVIDIA gives us the advanced computing capabilities needed to drive Africa’s AI innovation while strengthening the continent’s digital independence.”

In the case of Jaap Zuiderveld, VP EMEA at NVIDIA, AI is assisting entrepreneurs in solving the most difficult challenges in agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial services, and many other industries, hence creating opportunity in Africa.

He continued: “As an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, Cassava is providing essential infrastructure and software to help pioneering companies and organizations accelerate AI development to foster innovation across the continent.”