By VICTOR OLUWOLE

Strive Masiyiwa is one of Africa?s most respected business leaders. Many people know him as the man who helped bring mobile phones to millions of Africans through his company Econet.

He became one of the first African businessmen to challenge state-owned telecom monopolies and win. That step made many people see him as a symbol of progress and determination in Africa.

In recent years, he has stayed out of the public eye, but he has been quietly working on something much bigger. He is building a group of digital infrastructure companies that could play an important role in Africa?s technology future.

This work is happening through his company Cassava Technologies. Cassava brings together several of his businesses that are focused on building and running the systems that make the internet work.

These include fibre optic cables, data centres, and cloud computing services. Together, they are forming one of the strongest digital backbones in Africa.

Through Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Cassava operates more than 100,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables that run through over a dozen African countries.

These cables carry internet traffic between cities and countries every day. They connect millions of people, businesses, and public services. Having such a large network gives Cassava a strong base to support other digital services.

Another part of Cassava is Africa Data Centres, which runs some of the biggest data storage and processing facilities on the continent.

These data centres store and manage information for banks, companies, hospitals, schools, and government agencies. They are open to different internet providers and cloud service companies, which makes them useful to many organisations.

Cassava also runs cloud computing services through companies like Liquid C2 and Cloudmania. These provide secure digital tools and platforms that allow African businesses and public institutions to run their services locally without depending only on foreign providers.

This infrastructure has taken many years to build. It gives Masiyiwa something that is rare in Africa. He controls not just one part of the digital system, but several layers of it.

This puts him in a strong position as Africa begins to enter the era of artificial intelligence. He is now using this base to build what he calls AI factories across the continent.

Recently, Masiyiwa announced plans to build five AI factories in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco.

These will be special data centres designed to handle the massive computing power that artificial intelligence needs. The total investment is about 720 million US dollars.

The first AI factory is already being built in South Africa

It will include around 3,000 powerful Nvidia graphics processors, which are the type of hardware used to train and run AI systems. Many African universities, researchers, and startups have already booked space to use this computing power.

Cassava calls this plan the Sovereign AI Cloud. The goal is to give African countries and organisations the ability to develop and run their own AI systems inside Africa.

Speaking in a conversation with James Manyika on the YouTube series AI & Africa | Dialogues on Technology and Society, Masiyiwa explained how he started paying close attention to AI around 2016.

?I was beginning to realize at that point that this is here now,? he said. ?This is not something in the future.? He compares its scale to one of the biggest shifts in human history.

?I?ve been saying for a while that AI is not just like the internet; it is as big as the Industrial Revolution in its impact. The difference is the speed. The Industrial Revolution took a long time. This is going to happen in five or ten years, all that change compressed.?

Right now, most AI projects in Africa depend on cloud servers in Europe or North America. That is expensive and often slow. It can also raise concerns about data privacy and security.

By building local AI infrastructure, Masiyiwa hopes to make it cheaper, faster, and safer for Africans to build and use new technologies.

Reports say only about five percent of Africa?s AI talent currently has access to the powerful computing tools they need. Masiyiwa wants to change that and open access to many more people across the continent.

His companies are also receiving support from international partners

The International Finance Corporation has invested in Liquid Intelligent Technologies to help expand its data centres and fibre networks in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. Cassava is also upgrading its existing data centres with Nvidia supercomputers so they can handle AI workloads.

Large global technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, and Nvidia have also worked with Cassava as partners or suppliers.

In 2025, TIME magazine named Strive Masiyiwa to its TIME100 AI list and described his efforts as a major step forward for Africa?s digital future.

If this plan works, it could help many areas of life in Africa

Masiyiwa believes Africa must not miss this opportunity. ?We don?t want to be users any more than we want to be used,? he said.

?We want to fully participate in the economic opportunity. Our entrepreneurs must feel they are part of this; that we are creating wealth, not just using platforms where others get the benefit.?

?We are seeing no investment at all with respect to AI coming into Africa. No one is interested really from outside. More money comes into Africa from diaspora remittances than from foreign direct investment. It?s not that our people don?t have ideas. There?s no capital coming in to support those ideas,? he said.

This is why Cassava has focused on building the infrastructure that can support the next generation.

In healthcare, AI could help doctors find illnesses and keep patient records. In agriculture, it could help track weather, plan planting times, and grow more food.

In education, it could help students learn in local languages. In banking, it could help find fraud, check credit records, and serve customers better.

These tools work best when the computing power is close to where the data is collected. Building them in Africa could make them faster, cheaper, and more secure.

There are still challenges

AI factories and data centres use a lot of electricity, and many African countries do not have steady power supply.

Bringing in advanced hardware like Nvidia chips can also be slow and expensive because of shipping delays and customs processes.

There are not enough trained engineers, data scientists, and AI experts to run these systems, so more training will be needed. Each country also has its own rules about data protection, privacy, and taxes, and this can slow down projects.

At the same time, global technology companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google are also building data centres in Africa. Cassava will have to compete with them while proving that its systems are reliable and affordable.

But what makes Masiyiwa?s effort different is that it is homegrown and Pan-African.

While many foreign companies are only just beginning to build in Africa, he has spent years quietly putting the foundation in place.

He has built the fibre cables, the data centres, and the cloud systems that Africa will need for the future. Now he is connecting all these pieces and adding powerful AI infrastructure on top of them.

If it works, the man who helped connect Africa to mobile phones may also be remembered as the man who helped connect Africa to the age of artificial intelligence.(Business Insider Africa)

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