World Bank partners with Cassava and Nvidia to offer pay‑as‑you‑go AI compute in Africa

Cassava, founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, has been deploying its Nvidia‑powered “AI Factory” in South African data centres and plans to expand to Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco. In November 2025 the company launched what it called Africa’s first GPU‑as‑a‑service offering, and Masiyiwa said Cassava had acquired 12,000 Nvidia GPUs. Ahmed El Beheiry, Cassava’s group chief operating officer and chief technology and AI officer, said the goal is to keep AI computing on the continent so African data stays within its borders.

World Bank Group President Ajay Banga said the broader digital strategy, launched in Seoul, focuses on “small AI” tools for local tasks such as crop disease detection and health‑worker support. The lender notes that more than two billion people were offline globally in 2025, only 23 per cent of low‑income country residents used the internet versus 94 per cent in high‑income countries, and that 1.2 billion young people will reach working age in the next 10‑15 years while only about 420 million jobs are expected to be created.