Professional services firm Accenture and IT services and infrastructure company Cassava Technologies have formed a strategic partnership to enable Cassava’s customers to process AI workloads and data within national borders in alignment with local requirements and regulations.

To scale-up Cassava’s sovereign AI capability across Africa, Accenture will leverage its AI Refinery platform and other technologies to design and deliver sovereign AI solutions, using Cassava’s GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) housed in Cassava’s secure data centre facilities and accelerated with chip producer NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure.

Cassava will begin in South Africa and later expand into Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. The phased rollout is in line with Cassava’s planned expansions at its other data centre facilities across Africa.

It will leverage its pan-African fibre broadband network, which interconnects the company’s energy-efficient data centres, to power AI computing workloads.

The companies will integrate the context, languages and cultural nuances of the region into these AI solutions, thereby ensuring the solutions and services are relevant and impactful for African enterprises across key sectors such as financial services, mining, telecommunications, agriculture and healthcare.

This localised approach will strengthen compliance and trust, as well as ensure the technology reflects the realities of the markets it serves and, thereby, enable businesses to innovate in ways that are meaningful and sustainable, the companies say.

“Cassava will support the continent’s AI revolution with our GPUaaS by allowing businesses to access compute power based on their individual needs. We are committed to ensuring Africa has the infrastructure and access it needs to compete in the AI era,” says Cassava AI CEO Ahmed El Beheiry.

“This partnership will strengthen data governance, drive practical AI adoption across key industries and ensure we provide African solutions for African challenges,” he says.

Further, Cassava will invest in the infrastructure and platform build-out to ensure readiness for commercialisation, with a focus on scalability, security and compliance, thereby reinforcing its broader commitment to responsible AI adoption, innovation and productivity growth in Africa.

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