Cassava Technologies is betting big on Africa’s digital future. The pan-African tech group, founded by Strive Masiyiwa, has unveiled plans to establish five Artificial Intelligence factories within the next year, a move designed to expand what it calls the “Sovereign AI Cloud.”

The first facilities will roll out in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco. Masiyiwa said the goal is to give each major market access to its own AI infrastructure, a step that could help position Africa as a player in the global AI economy.

Cassava’s partnership with Nvidia sits at the heart of the rollout. The inaugural AI factory, set to open in South Africa, will house 3,000 Nvidia GPUs. According to the company, much of that initial computing power has already been reserved by African developers and researchers.

Over time, Cassava says it plans to channel as much as USD 720 million into building out pan-African AI capacity.

The AI factories are not standalone projects. They slot into a broader portfolio that includes Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa Data Centres, and Liquid C2. These businesses already provide connectivity, cloud hosting, and cybersecurity services, giving Cassava a layered ecosystem to build on.

Earlier this year, the group launched Cassava AI, a business unit tasked with partnerships and product development. The company has already tied up with AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic to integrate services and support developers across the continent. Masiyiwa has also teased a new framework he calls the “Distributed AI Cloud,” aimed at knitting together infrastructure across multiple African regions.

The rush to establish AI capacity in Africa is not just about infrastructure. It’s about sovereignty, economic competitiveness, and participation in the fourth industrial revolution. Local data centers equipped with high-performance GPUs mean less reliance on overseas cloud providers and more opportunities for African researchers to build language models, financial tools, and health solutions tailored to the continent.

For now, the race is on. With five factories slated to go live within a year, Cassava is positioning itself as both builder and gatekeeper of Africa’s AI future.