Cassava Technologies, Vodafone Business and Elsewedy Electric have agreed to establish Africa Data Centres Egypt, including Egypt’s first sovereign AI data centre powered by Nvidia GPUs.
The project will initially provide 20MW of data centre capacity over three years, with plans to expand to 200MW, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which witnessed the signing.
The ministry said the project is expected to attract US$200 million in initial foreign direct investment, rising to US$1 billion when fully developed. It could also create up to 200 direct and 2,000 indirect jobs.
The project will combine Cassava Technologies’ data centre operations in Africa, Vodafone Business’ cloud and enterprise services, and Elsewedy Electric’s expertise in energy and infrastructure.
A separate agreement signed by Cassava Technologies and Vodafone Business on Tuesday, September 8, will establish the AI facility as part of the project.
The “AI factory” will use Nvidia accelerated computing technologies through Cassava Technologies, Nvidia’s official cloud partner in Africa, and will offer GPU-as-a-Service for large-scale AI applications.
“We are ensuring that African businesses aren’t just consumers of global tech – they are the architects of it,” said Ahmed El Beheiry, group Chief Technology and AI Officer at Cassava Technologies and CEO of Cassava AI.
Mahmoud El-Khatib, vice-president of enterprise business at Vodafone Egypt, said the facility would support the development of locally hosted AI services.
“Through this collaboration, we are strengthening Egypt’s AI infrastructure capabilities and developing sovereign AI solutions by leveraging locally hosted global technologies that ensure data residency within Egypt,” he said.
Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Raafat Hendy said the project would strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure and support cloud and AI services, while allowing sensitive data to be hosted and processed locally.
