Cassava Technologies has announced plans to build Africa’s first “AI Factory” — a high-performance, AI-enabled data center powered by NVIDIA’s advanced computing technology.
At the moment, NVIDIA objectively has the best GPUs on the market, so this would be a world-class data “AI factory.”
Cassava says this move will drive Africa’s AI innovation, enhance local technological capabilities, and provide businesses and governments with the computational power needed to stay competitive.
But beyond the press release’s polished marketing copy, what does this actually mean for Africa?
What Is Cassava Building?
In simple terms, the AI Factory is a data center equipped with NVIDIA GPU-based supercomputers.
Remember, a data center is just a physical facility that has critical IT infrastructure, like servers, storage, and networking equipment, to store, process, and distribute data.
The NVIDIA GPUs, which are massively expensive, by the way, will provide the raw computational power required to train, fine-tune, and run advanced AI models.
This will be deployed at Cassava’s South African data centers by June 2025, with plans to expand to Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out why Zimbabwe is not on that list.
Cassava will also offer AI as a Service (AIaaS) — allowing businesses to access advanced AI capabilities without investing in their own costly hardware.
NVIDIA’s GPUs designed for AI training vary in price based on the model and configuration. For example, the Blackwell B200 AI GPU is priced between $30,000 and $40,000 per unit. At the high end, the GB200 Superchip, which combines GPU and CPU capabilities, ranges from $60,000 to $70,000. So, this AIaaS thing could be in demand because the costs to do it yourself are just too high.
In theory, this AIaaS approach could improve AI access for African companies, particularly smaller ones that cannot afford to build such infrastructure themselves.
Why This Matters
Africa’s AI Infrastructure Gap
As we’re all too acutely aware, Africa has lagged behind other regions in access to advanced digital infrastructure. AI development requires substantial computing power, and most African businesses rely on foreign cloud platforms.
Cassava’s AI Factory aims to bring this home, reducing dependence on external providers. The idea is that this would accelerate the continent’s technological development.
Data Sovereignty and Security
Cassava talks about keeping data within African borders. Globally, there is a major focus on data privacy and sovereignty, and many governments are pushing for regulations that require sensitive information to be stored domestically.
Cassava’s localized AI infrastructure could help here. It’s not just Zimbabwe coming up with Data Protection Acts, and so Cassava hopes to help with similar initiatives like Kenya’s Data Protection Act and Nigeria’s NDPA.
AI Accessibility for African Businesses
Offering AIaaS means African startups can access world-class AI tech without acquiring high-performance hardware themselves.
This could be huge in sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and financial services — where AI can streamline processes, among other things.
What Remains Unclear
Meeting the ambitious June 2025 deadline will be quite the challenge. There will be logistical and infrastructure hurdles, chief of which will be acquiring the NVIDIA GPUs, which are in high demand and have seen some supply constraints.
Power reliability in Africa, internet latency, and maintaining the physical infrastructure to support advanced supercomputers will also be unique challenges non-African companies might not have to deal with.
The actual cost of accessing AIaaS will determine how much this project benefits smaller African businesses. If pricing is too high, only multinational corporations and wealthier governments will be able to benefit from the AI factory, leaving smaller startups behind.
Love the Ambition
Cassava’s AI Factory is an ambitious project. It could give local businesses and governments the tools to compete globally while ensuring digital sovereignty for the twitchy governments that are all coming up with Data Protection Acts.
However, the project’s success rests on its ability to deliver on accessibility, affordability, and reliability. It will be quite the challenge to get all of that right.
Cassava to upgrade its data centres with NVIDIA supercomputers to drive Africa’s AI future.
Cassava’s AI-enabled data centres will help Africa develop domestic AI technologies, increase productivity, protect data and support businesses, making the continent economically competitive and future-ready
LONDON, United Kingdom 24 March 2025 – Cassava Technologies announced today that it plans to build Africa’s first AI factory — a powerful and super-secure data centre facility powered with NVIDIA AI computing technology. This will give African businesses, governments and researchers access to cutting-edge AI computing capacity — helping them develop smarter AI products, streamline operations and stay competitive in a fast-changing world. It provides the supercomputers and software needed to train AI while keeping data within Africa’s borders.
Cassava plans to deploy NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI software using NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) reference architectures, at its data centres in South Africa by June 2025, with expansion planned at its other data centre facilities in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. 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’s world-class data centres are designed to be energy efficient, using less electricity to power AI computing workloads.
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.
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.
“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,” said Strive Masiyiwa, Founder & Chairman of Cassava. “Collaborating with NVIDIA gives us the advanced computing capabilities needed to drive Africa’s AI innovation while strengthening the continent’s digital independence.”
“AI is helping innovators solve our greatest challenges in agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial services and many other industries creating opportunity in Africa,” said Jaap Zuiderveld, VP EMEA at NVIDIA. “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.”
Cassava’s AI Factory marks the next step in the group’s long-standing leadership in providing world class digital solutions, reinforcing its broader commitment to responsible AI adoption, innovation and productivity growth in Africa.
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