Cassava, Accenture launch African sovereign AI initiative

By Vriti Gothi

Cassava Technologies has partnered with Accenture to scale sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities across Africa. This initiative marks is a step in enabling African businesses and governments to harness AI in compliance with national regulations and data sovereignty requirements.

Under the partnership, Accenture will deploy its AI Refinery platform  alongside other advanced technologies to design and deliver sovereign AI solutions. These solutions will leverage Cassava’s GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), hosted in Cassava’s secure, energy-efficient data centres and accelerated through NVIDIA AI infrastructure. The combined offering allows organisations to process AI workloads and data within national borders, ensuring adherence to local compliance, regulatory, and governance standards.

The rollout will commence in South Africa, with phased expansion planned for Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria. This expansion aligns with Cassava’s broader pan-African strategy, utilising its high-speed, ultra-low-latency fibre broadband network to interconnect data centres and power scalable AI workloads.

“AI is opening up exciting new opportunities for sparking innovation, advancing competitiveness, and driving growth across Africa,” said Mauro Macchi, CEO of Accenture for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. “With our deep global experience in sovereign cloud and AI, Accenture will help Cassava deliver secure, scalable sovereign AI solutions and reimagine its operations. Together, we will enable organisations across the continent to adopt AI with confidence and unlock new ways to create value.”

Ahmed El Beheiry, CEO of Cassava AI, added, “With GPUaaS, Cassava is empowering African businesses to access compute power tailored to their individual needs. AI is not just a technology story it is a nation-building story, centred on inclusion and equitable access. Our collaboration with Accenture leverages their global expertise to build a sovereign AI cloud specifically for the African market. This partnership strengthens data governance, accelerates practical AI adoption across key industries, and ensures African solutions for African challenges.”

The collaboration emphasises localisation, integrating regional languages, cultural contexts, and operational realities into AI solutions. By embedding local intelligence into these platforms, Cassava and Accenture aim to support enterprises across financial services, telecommunications, mining, agriculture, and healthcare, fostering innovation that is both relevant and sustainable.