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At the Unstoppable Africa 2025 forum, held alongside the 80th United Nations General Assembly, Zimbabwean tycoon Strive Masiyiwa, founder of Econet Global and Cassava Technologies, announced an ambitious plan to build Africa’s first pan-continental network of AI factories.
Masiyiwa revealed that the project will be powered by NVIDIA GPUs, with full deployment expected by late 2026.
He argued that Africa must shift from being a passive consumer of artificial intelligence systems to becoming a creator of them.
“We cannot afford to be spectators in the AI revolution. Africa must be a producer of solutions, not just a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere,” he said.
The undertaking is set to become a key pillar of Cassava’s Sovereign AI Cloud strategy. Under this vision, the continent would gain the infrastructure to conduct local AI research, development, and deployment.
Masiyiwa emphasized that the initiative is meant to democratize access to high-performance computing for African innovators and reduce the dependence on offshore cloud facilities.
According to public reports, the first of the planned facilities will be located in South Africa, running on 3,000 NVIDIA GPUs, many of which have already been reserved by developers and researchers across the continent.
Over time, Masiyiwa plans to expand this AI factory model into Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco. The total investment is estimated at USD 720 million.
Observers note that only a small fraction of Africa’s AI talent currently has access to the computational resources needed for cutting-edge work—a gap that the new AI factories aim to close.
The network will also interconnect with Cassava’s existing digital infrastructure, including Africa Data Centres, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, and Liquid C2, to support use cases in sectors like healthcare, agriculture, finance, and education.
Masiyiwa’s unveiling marks a major milestone in Africa’s digital transformation journey, underscoring his long-standing push to develop homegrown tech ecosystems across the continent.
If successful, the AI factory network could reshape Africa’s role in the global AI economy—transforming it from a net consumer of AI technologies into a vibrant producer of them.
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