For years, artificial intelligence has captivated internet users worldwide, but Africans have largely had to rely on AI models built in the West. These models contain little African content—whether languages, local solutions, or even images—leaving developers on the continent at a disadvantage.
That is about to change. Cassava Technologies, founded by Strive Masiyiwa, has partnered with Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chipmaker, to build Africa’s first AI factory.
The deal will see Cassava deploy Nvidia’s computing power at its African data centres, starting in South Africa in June this year.
“By installing supercomputers powered by NVIDIA GPUs, Cassava will enable local developers to create AI solutions that can harness the immense compute power hosted at Cassava’s data centres. Most importantly, it will ensure that the data of Africans remains within Africa,” Cassava said in a statement.
Jaap Zuiderveld, VP of EMEA at Nvidia, said: “AI is helping innovators solve our greatest challenges in agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial services and many other industries, creating opportunity in Africa.”
Masiyiwa says idea was inspired by a comment on Africa being just a consumer of AI
To develop AI models, developers need powerful computing infrastructure capable of processing vast amounts of data.
For instance, Tesla’s AI factory trains self-driving car algorithms by processing enormous amounts of real-world driving data. Currently, Africa lacks this capability.
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Masiyiwa says the idea for the AI factory came after attending a panel discussion where someone claimed that “Africa would be just a consumer of AI because the cost of computing was beyond us!”
“Think of it this way: Let’s say you want to develop a Large Language AI model for your mother language. Getting the skills to do that is not such a big deal, but accessing the ‘compute’ needed to power the processing in a cost-effective manner is challenging.”
He predicts that models will support “our main African languages within a couple of years”, presenting opportunities for developers.
“It is my biggest undertaking since building Liquid’s continental-scale fibre optic network which now spans nearly the entire continent and took 20+ years to build,” Masiyiwa adds. – NewzWire
