Strive Masiyiwa
Cassava Technologies

The Zimbabwean billionaire and philanthropist’s holding company, Cassava Technologies, has signed a $720 million agreement with the American chipmaker NVIDIA to build five artificial intelligence factories across Africa. Two AI Factory projects have already been announced—in South Africa and Casablanca—with three more expected to follow, including facilities in Tunisia and Egypt. “This is my biggest venture since building the Liquid pan-African fibre-optic network,” Strive Masiyiwa said. Named by Time magazine among the 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2025, Masiyiwa is determined to build a digitally sovereign Africa, one capable of using technology to solve its own challenges. Cassava’s AI Factories will deploy high-performance computing infrastructure powered by thousands of NVIDIA graphics processors, enabling African businesses, researchers and governments to develop, train and test their own AI solutions on the continent.