Cassava Technologies (Cassava) (www.CassavaTechnologies.com) and The Rockefeller Foundation announced a new effort to harness the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for good across Africa. Cassava, which previously announced plans to build Africa’s first AI factory powered with NVIDIA AI infrastructure, will provide access to compute capacity to several The Rockefeller Foundation’s grantees working in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe.

While enabling Africa’s full participation in the US$1.2 trillion projected AI economy (http://apo-opa.co/3XEsfHC), this collaboration will boost productivity and power innovation at African organizations that are improving lives and livelihoods across the continent.

“AI presents Africa with one of the best opportunities to drive economic development and access to economic opportunity for the continent’s youth. This requires investment in ensuring that AI developers across Africa have the resources and platforms to create solutions to Africa’s unique challenges. Powered by NVIDIA AI infrastructure, our AI factory will enable startups, enterprises, the public sector, and educational institutions to focus on developing AI applications using local datasets, languages, models, and voices to build inclusive solutions. We are excited to partner with the Rockefeller Foundation to bring local compute capacity to Africa’s AI ecosystem,” said Hardy Pemhiwa, President and Group CEO of Cassava Technologies. 

While nearly one-in-five people worldwide lives in Africa, the continent currently has less than 1% (http://apo-opa.co/48gsdvP) of global data center capacity. Africa’s AI market, which is currently estimated at $5.17 billion, is expected to grow exponentially over the next decade. Locally accessible computing capacity is necessary to power Africa’s AI ambitions.

“AI can be transformative in the right hands, contributing to healthier communities, more productive farmers, and better education for children. If we get AI right in Africa, we can help Africans create jobs, advance opportunity, and pursue their dreams. Our collaboration with Cassava reflects The Rockefeller Foundation’s foundational belief that the latest advances in science and technology should serve everyone, not just the fortunate few, and that includes empowering African innovators with the tools they need to shape the continent’s future,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation.

Through this new collaboration, Cassava and The Rockefeller Foundation are ensuring that  African-led innovations in agriculture, healthcare, and education sectors have resources to improve outcomes with AI. Initial organizations that will benefit from this new collaboration include:

• Digital Green, a company using AI in Ethiopia and Kenya to empower smallholder farmers with localized, real-time agricultural advice that increases productivity, resilience, and growth.

“Farmer.Chat, Digital Green’s AI assistant, is reimagining how smallholder farmers access knowledge—delivering trusted, localised guidance at nearly 100x lower cost than traditional extension. With GPUs now available on the African continent, we can unlock breakthroughs in speech-to-text, local language translation, image recognition, and retrieval-augmented generation—dramatically reducing costs and expanding reach. This new capacity makes it possible to bring climate-smart, real-time advice to millions of farmers, while continuously improving accuracy, safety, and support for Africa’s diverse languages and agricultural ecologies. Our vision is simple but bold: to put the power of AI directly in the hands of every farmer, helping them grow more resilient, prosperous, and connected to the future.” — Rikin Gandhi, CEO, Digital Green

• Jacaranda Health, which is harnessing technology to improve the quality of care for mothers and their children in Kenya.

“Jacaranda Health is deploying AI-powered tools that connect millions of mothers and babies with life-saving care in real-time. Access to advanced compute resources on the continent will accelerate our development of culturally-attuned, multilingual AI models while slashing costs—enabling us to reach millions of women with critical health information in their native languages. This infrastructure will prevent maternal deaths, empower informed healthcare decisions, and build Africa's capacity to solve its own health challenges with homegrown AI innovation.” — Cynthia Kahumbura, Co-Executive Director, Jacaranda Health.

• Rising Academies, a West African company leveraging technology to improve outcomes for more than 250,000 students in Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

“In just one academic year, we’ve seen how AI can reshape learning in Rwanda’s classrooms. More than 13,000 students gained access to structured literacy and numeracy content, teachers cut grading time by 60% through LearnLens, and 85% of learners told us they enjoy using Rori to strengthen their math skills. One student in rural Rwanda told us that technology is no longer just for city children, but for those of us in rural areas as well. Our vision is clear: to make effective, inclusive, and locally relevant learning support available to every child—helping them thrive today and shape the future of our country.” — Fidele Hagenimana, Head of Rwanda Programs, Rising Academies.

This year, Cassava launched its GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), housed in its secure data center facilities, powered by NVIDIA AI infrastructure. The company continues to invest in the infrastructure across additional hubs in East, West and North Africa; thereby reinforcing its broader commitment to responsible AI adoption, innovation and productivity growth in Africa. The collaboration highlights Cassava’s commitment to ensuring that GPUaas is accessible to organizations working throughout the social sector. 

“Cassava’s collaborations with key stakeholders are critically important to the development of Africa’s AI ecosystem to ensure that Africans are not just consumers of AI, but builders of it. This partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation highlights Cassava’s intent to lay the foundations for an ecosystem that is inclusive, sustainable, and globally competitive,” concluded Hardy.