Building a national AI data centre is expensive, slow and needs scarce skills. The World Bank thinks many governments should not have to. In Seoul, alongside its first digital strategy, the World Bank Group unveiled an AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative, with Cassava Technologies and Nvidia as knowledge partners, ITWeb Africa reported on 21 October.
The idea is shared, pay-as-you-go access to the graphics processors (GPUs) used to build and run AI, starting with countries in Africa and Latin America.
Cassava’s head start
Cassava, founded by Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa, has been building exactly this kind of capacity. Earlier this year it began rolling out its Nvidia-powered “AI Factory” in South African data centres, and it plans to expand to Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco.
In November 2025 it launched what it called Africa’s first GPU-as-a-service offering, letting businesses, developers and researchers rent computing power hosted on the continent. Masiyiwa said at the time that the company had bought 12,000 Nvidia GPUs.
Cassava argues that training and running AI in Africa helps keep sensitive data on the continent. The announcements reviewed do not identify participating countries.
Related reporting: Honeywell brings industrial AI to Nigeria’s Dangote refinery.
