Cassava Technologies partners with Nvidia to establish Africa's first AI factory

Cassava Technologies, the brainchild of Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, has announced an ambitious plan to build Africa's inaugural artificial intelligence (AI) factory in collaboration with American tech giant Nvidia. This groundbreaking initiative aims to create a dynamic innovation ecosystem that integrates computing power, data capacity, and software to support both public and private sectors in developing AI models tailored to local challenges.

The factory, which will be located in South Africa, is designed as a powerful and ultra-secure data center equipped with Nvidia's cutting-edge AI technology. This innovative ecosystem will provide access to supercomputing resources and essential software for AI model creation while ensuring data remains within African borders. It will leverage Cassava Technologies' extensive pan-African high-speed, low-latency fiber optic network, alongside sustainable and energy-efficient data centers to deliver AI as a Service (AIaaS).

"The AI factory will enable businesses and researchers to harness the computational power needed to scale, enhance productivity, and drive innovation," the African tech company stated. They emphasized that this secure and high-performing facility will empower African enterprises and governments to develop localized solutions for regional challenges, allowing Africans to create, train, scale, and deploy AI within a secure and compliant framework.

Nvidia's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based supercomputers will fuel the AI factory, facilitating faster AI model training, precise tuning, and advanced inference capabilities.

Cassava Technologies has also revealed plans to roll out Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI software, using Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP) reference architectures, in its South African data centers by June 2025, with future expansion anticipated in its data centers located in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria.

"Building the digital infrastructure for the AI economy is crucial for Africa to fully leverage the fourth industrial revolution," commented Strive Masiyiwa. He added, "Our AI factory provides the necessary infrastructure for deploying this innovation, enabling African businesses, startups, and researchers to access cutting-edge AI resources to turn their bold ideas into tangible advancements. They no longer need to look beyond Africa for these capabilities."

Jaap Zuiderveld, Nvidia's Vice President for Europe, the Middle East & Africa (EMEA), highlighted that AI empowers innovators to tackle significant challenges across agriculture, health, energy, finance, and other sectors, thereby creating numerous opportunities throughout Africa. As Nvidia's cloud partner, Cassava is set to deliver essential infrastructure and software to assist pioneering enterprises and organizations in accelerating AI development and fostering innovation across the continent.