As Africa’s digital economy expands through rising smartphone adoption, social media engagement, and internet penetration, Cassava Technologies says the next phase of telecom growth on the continent will depend heavily on investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Speaking at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, Cassava Technologies CEO and Group President Hardy Pemhiwa described AI infrastructure as the backbone required to sustain Africa’s rapidly growing data economy.
According to Pemhiwa, the continent’s telecom revolution has evolved dramatically over the last two decades, moving from minimal connectivity to widespread mobile access and increasing internet usage. But he argued that the next challenge is no longer simply about network coverage—it is about building the infrastructure capable of handling future digital demand.
“Twenty-five years ago, most Africans had never heard a phone ring,” he said during the panel discussion. “Today, we are operating in markets with deep penetration, multiple SIM ownership, and rapidly growing data consumption.”
Africa’s “Digital Plumbing” Problem
Pemhiwa described fibre networks, data centres, cloud infrastructure, and AI computing systems as the “digital plumbing” necessary to support the continent’s next wave of technological growth.
While undersea cables and mobile infrastructure helped connect Africa to the global internet economy, local infrastructure gaps remain significant. Much of Africa still lacks the data centre capacity, fibre connectivity, and computing power needed to process and store data locally at scale.
This has implications for the continent’s AI ambitions. Without local infrastructure, African businesses and governments remain dependent on foreign cloud systems and overseas data processing, increasing costs and limiting digital sovereignty.
Cassava Technologies is positioning itself at the centre of that transition.
Cassava’s AI Expansion Strategy
Over the last three decades, the company says it has built more than 116,000 kilometres of fibre infrastructure across Africa while also investing in renewable energy systems and enterprise-grade data centres.
The company is now expanding deeper into AI infrastructure through partnerships and dedicated AI facilities.
Cassava recently announced plans to deploy AI factories powered by thousands of NVIDIA GPUs in partnership with NVIDIA. Its first AI factory has already been completed in South Africa and will operate using approximately 3,000 GPUs designed for high-performance AI computing workloads.
The broader initiative, valued at roughly $720 million includes plans to establish additional AI facilities in Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt.
The strategy reflects a growing recognition that AI development is increasingly dependent on proximity to computing infrastructure, not just internet access.
The Accessibility Challenge
Despite infrastructure investments by telecom giants such as MTN Group, Airtel Africa, Vodacom Group, and Orange S.A., accessibility remains uneven across African markets.
Pemhiwa noted that while telecom operators have made progress expanding network coverage, ensuring meaningful access to high-speed connectivity remains a separate challenge.
The issue is particularly visible in the rollout of 5G services. Although countries such as South Africa have advanced deployments, adoption across much of Africa remains limited by infrastructure gaps, affordability constraints, and inconsistent network availability.
Recent data from Nigeria, for instance, showed that many users with 5G-enabled smartphones still struggle to maintain stable 5G connections, forcing devices to revert to older 4G or 3G networks.
Infrastructure as Africa’s Competitive Advantage
The discussion highlights a broader shift occurring across Africa’s technology landscape: infrastructure is increasingly becoming the central battleground for digital competitiveness.
As AI adoption accelerates globally, countries and companies with stronger computing capacity, local data processing capabilities, and resilient digital infrastructure will be better positioned to capture economic value from the next generation of internet services.
For Africa, the challenge is not simply connecting people online anymore, it is ensuring the continent has the infrastructure required to participate meaningfully in the AI economy rather than remaining only a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere.
