Strive Masiyiwa’s Cassava Technologies has launched a groundbreaking artificial intelligence platform designed to change how Africa accesses and uses advanced digital models. The new platform, known as the Cassava AI Multi Model Exchange, represents a major step toward making high-level AI tools accessible to businesses and institutions across the continent.
YOU CAN ALSO READ: The Power of Yes: Inside Bella Disu’s Journey to Reinvention and Leadership
The platform offers a single interface through which African mobile operators and enterprises can connect to multiple global AI models from leading technology providers. Its design lowers traditional barriers to accessing sophisticated AI tools, enabling African companies, startups, and small businesses to integrate advanced machine learning and automation into their operations without heavy costs or technical hurdles.
A key part of the platform’s value is its focus on data sovereignty. All services are hosted within Cassava’s regional AI factories, ensuring that African data is stored and processed on the continent. This approach strengthens privacy, enhances compliance with local regulatory standards, and reduces dependence on foreign cloud systems.
The launch aligns with Cassava’s broader plan to build five AI factories across South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco. These facilities form the foundation of what the company calls its Sovereign AI Cloud, an ecosystem meant to retain Africa’s data, talent, and computational power within its own borders.
The investment behind this infrastructure runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars and includes high-performance computing systems capable of powering advanced AI development.
Masiyiwa has emphasized that this project is about democratizing technology. The platform is built not only for major corporations but also for small and medium-sized enterprises that have historically lacked access to high-end digital tools. By providing local compute power and easier access to generative AI, the platform can help African businesses improve customer support, automate processes, analyze data more effectively, and drive innovation across industries.
YOU CAN ALSO READ: “Presence, Not Provision”: Bunmi Adeniran Urges Society to Redefine What Makes a Good Man
Cassava has also established partnerships with African data science communities to advance research and real-world AI applications in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and financial services. Through such collaborations, local developers and researchers can now train and deploy complex AI models without leaving the continent. This could play a major role in reducing brain drain and nurturing homegrown AI expertise.
The launch raises important questions about regulation, energy sustainability, and adoption. African countries will need consistent frameworks to guide responsible AI use, while the energy demands of large AI systems will require stable and sustainable power sources. Cassava’s ability to support capacity building among SMEs will also determine how widely the platform is adopted.
Despite these challenges, the initiative marks a significant milestone in Africa’s digital journey. By building the infrastructure to support AI innovation locally, Masiyiwa aims to position the continent not just as a consumer of global technologies but as an active participant and creator in the next wave of digital transformation. If fully realized, this vision could help Africa leapfrog legacy systems and shape a more autonomous and competitive technological future
