Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa has unveiled plans to establish five artificial intelligence (AI) factories across Africa within the next year, in what could become one of the continent’s most ambitious technology infrastructure projects.
According to Business Insider Africa, the initiative will be funded through Masiyiwa’s company, Cassava Technologies, with a projected investment of $720 million.
The factories will be located in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco, and are designed to give Africa’s largest markets access to advanced local AI infrastructure.
The first facility is already under construction in South Africa, where it will operate on 3,000 Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units). Cassava officials say much of this computing power has already been reserved by African researchers and developers.
Masiyiwa, who built Econet Wireless into one of Africa’s biggest telecoms groups and is now worth an estimated $1.3 billion, described the project as part of Cassava’s “Sovereign AI Cloud” strategy.
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The approach aims to help African countries host and run AI systems locally, reducing dependence on overseas cloud providers.
“Our AI factory provides the infrastructure for innovation to scale, empowering African businesses, start-ups, and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure. Now they don’t have to look beyond Africa to get it,” Masiyiwa said.
The factories are expected to house thousands of high-performance Nvidia processors and will connect to Cassava’s wider digital network, which includes Africa Data Centres, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, and Liquid C2.
Together, these entities already supply data storage, connectivity, and cybersecurity services across the continent.
Industry observers note that the move could be a game changer.
Currently, only about 5% of Africa’s AI talent has access to the high-performance computing resources required to build advanced models.
By localizing AI infrastructure, the initiative could lower costs for African startups and governments while ensuring sensitive data remains on the continent.
Cassava has also struck partnerships with global tech giants including Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Anthropic to support African developers.
Analysts suggest the project could position Africa as a rising player in the fast-growing global AI economy, with potential applications in finance, healthcare, agriculture, and education.
If completed as planned, all five factories will be operational by late 2026, making Cassava one of the continent’s largest builders of AI infrastructure.
Image Credit: Business Insider Africa
