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Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
The global AI divide
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Cassava, a tech company founded by a Zimbabwean billionaire, Strive Masiyiwa, is scheduled to open one of Africa's most advanced data centers this summer. The plans, three years in the making, culminated in an October meeting in California between Cassava executives and Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, to buy hundreds of his company's chips. Google is also one of Cassava's investors. In May, Sam Altman, the CEO of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, donned a helmet, work boots and a luminescent high-visibility vest to visit the construction site of the company's new data center project in than New York's Central Park, the estimated $60 billion project, which has its own natural gas plant, will be one of the most powerful computing hubs ever created when completed as soon as next the same time as Altman's visit to Texas, Nicolás Wolovick, a computer science professor at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, was running what counts as one of his country's most advanced AI computing hubs. It was in a converted room at the university, where wires snaked between aging AI chips and server computers."Everything is becoming more split," Wolovick said. "We are losing."Artificial intelligence has created a new digital divide, fracturing the world between nations with the computing power for building cutting-edge AI systems and those without. The split is influencing geopolitics and global economics, creating new dependencies and prompting a desperate rush to not be excluded from a technology race that could reorder economies, drive scientific discovery and change the way that people live and biggest beneficiaries by far are the United States China and the European Union. Those regions host more than half of the world's most powerful data centers, which are used for developing the most complex AI systems, according to data compiled by Oxford University researchers. Only 32 countries, or about 16% of nations, have these large facilities filled with microchips and computers, giving them what is known in industry parlance as "compute power."The United States and China, which dominate the tech world, have particular influence. U.S. and Chinese companies operate more than 90% of the data centers that other companies and institutions use for AI work, according to the Oxford data and other contrast, Africa and South America have almost no AI computing hubs, while India has at least five and Japan at least four, according to the Oxford data. More than 150 countries have AI data centers dwarf their predecessors, which powered simpler tasks like email and video streaming. Vast, power-hungry and packed with powerful chips, these hubs cost billions to build and require infrastructure that not every country can provide. With ownership concentrated among a few tech giants, the effects of the gap between those with such computing power and those without it are already playing world's most used AI systems, which power chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, are more proficient and accurate in English and Chinese, languages spoken in the countries where the compute power is concentrated. Tech giants with access to the top equipment are using AI to process data, automate tasks and develop new services. Scientific breakthroughs, including drug discovery and gene editing, rely on powerful computers. AI-powered weapons are making their way onto with little or no AI compute power are running into limits in scientific work, in the growth of young companies and in talent retention. Some officials have become alarmed by how the need for computing resources has made them beholden to foreign corporations and governments."Oil-producing countries have had an oversized influence on international affairs; in an AI-powered near future, compute producers could have something similar, since they control access to a critical resource," said Vili Lehdonvirta, an Oxford professor who conducted the research on AI data centers with his colleagues Zoe Jay Hawkins and Boxi computing power is so precious that the components in data centers, such as microchips, have become a crucial part of foreign and trade policies for China and the United States, which are jockeying for influence in the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. At the same time, some countries are beginning to pour public funds into AI infrastructure, aiming for more control over their technological Oxford researchers mapped the world's AI data centers, information that companies and governments often keep secret. To create a representative sample, they went through the customer websites of nine of the world's biggest cloud service providers to see what compute power was available and where their hubs were at the end of last year. The companies were the U.S. firms Amazon, Google and Microsoft; China's Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei; and Europe's Exoscale, Hetzner and research does not include every data center worldwide, but the trends were unmistakable. U.S. companies operated 87 AI computing hubs, which can sometimes include multiple data centers, or almost two-thirds of the global total, compared with 39 operated by Chinese firms and six by Europeans, according to the research. Inside the data centers, most of the chips -- the foundational components for making calculations -- were from U.S. chipmaker Nvidia "We have a computing divide at the heart of the AI revolution," said Lacina Koné, the director general of Smart Africa, which coordinates digital policy across the continent. He added, "It's not merely a hardware problem. It's the sovereignty of our digital future."There has long been a tech gap between rich and developing countries. Over the past decade, cheap smartphones, expanding internet coverage and flourishing app-based businesses led some experts to conclude that the divide was diminishing. Last year, 68% of the world's population used the internet, up from 33% in 2012, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations a computer and knowledge of coding, getting a company off the ground became cheaper and easier. That lifted tech industries across the world, be they mobile payments in Africa or ride hailing in Southeast in April, the U.N. warned that the digital gap would widen without action on AI. Just 100 companies, mostly in the United States and China, were behind 40% of global investment in the technology, the U.N. said. The biggest tech companies, it added, were "gaining control over the technology's future."The gap stems partly from a component everyone wants: a microchip known as a graphics processing unit, or GPU. The chips require multibillion-dollar factories to produce. Packed into data centers by the thousands and mostly made by Nvidia, GPUs provide the computing power for creating and delivering cutting-edge AI these pieces of silicon is difficult. As demand has increased, prices for the chips have soared, and everyone wants to be at the front of the line for orders. Adding to the challenges, these chips then need to be corralled into giant data centers that guzzle up dizzying amounts of power and wealthy nations have access to the chips in data centers, but other countries are being left behind, according to interviews with more than two dozen tech executives and experts across 20 countries. Renting computing power from faraway data centers is common but can lead to challenges, including high costs, slower connection speeds, compliance with different laws, and vulnerability to the whims of U.S. and Chinese a startup in Kenya, illustrates the issues. The company, founded by a former Google engineer, is building an AI system known as a large language model that is based on African languages. But Qhala has no nearby computing power and rents from data centers outside Africa. Employees cram their work into the morning, when most American programmers are sleeping, so there is less traffic and faster speeds to transfer data across the world."Proximity is essential," said Shikoh Gitau, 44, Qhala's founder."If you don't have the resources for compute to process the data and to build your AI models, then you can't go anywhere," said Kate Kallot, a former Nvidia executive and the founder of Amini, another AI startup in the United States, by contrast, Amazon, Microsoft , Google, Meta and OpenAI have pledged to spend more than $300 billion this year, much of it on AI infrastructure. The expenditure approaches Canada's national budget. Harvard University's Kempner Institute, which focuses on AI, has more computing power than all African-owned facilities on that continent combined, according to one survey of the world's largest Smith, Microsoft's president, said many countries wanted more computing infrastructure as a form of sovereignty. But closing the gap will be difficult, particularly in Africa, where many places do not have reliable electricity, he said. Microsoft, which is building a data center in Kenya with a company in the United Arab Emirates, G42, chooses data center locations based largely on market need, electricity and skilled labor."The AI era runs the risk of leaving Africa even further behind," Smith Puri, Nvidia's executive vice president for global business, said the company was also working with various countries to build out their AI offerings."It is absolutely a challenge," he Lehane, OpenAI's vice president of global affairs, said the company had started a program to adapt its products for local needs and languages. A risk of the AI divide, he said, is that "the benefits don't get broadly distributed, they don't get democratized."Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei, Google, Amazon, Hetzner and OVHcloud declined to gap has led to brain drains. In Argentina, Wolovick, 51, the computer science professor, cannot offer much compute power. His top students regularly leave for the United States or Europe, where they can get access to GPUs, he said."Sometimes I want to cry, but I don't give up," he said. "I keep talking to people and saying, 'I need more GPUs. I need more GPUs.'"The uneven distribution of AI computing power has split the world into two camps: nations that rely on China and those that depend on the United two countries not only control the most data centers but also are set to build more than others by far. And they have wielded their tech advantage to exert influence. The Biden and Trump administrations have used trade restrictions to control which countries can buy powerful AI chips, allowing the United States to pick winners. China has used state-backed loans to encourage sales of its companies' networking equipment and data effects are evident in Southeast Asia and the Middle the 2010s, Chinese companies made inroads into the tech infrastructure of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are key U.S. partners, with official visits and generous financing. The United States sought to use its AI lead to push back. In one deal with the Biden administration, an Emirati company promised to keep out Chinese technology in exchange for access to AI technology from Nvidia and May, President Donald Trump signed additional deals to give Saudi Arabia and the UAE even more access to U.S. chips.A similar jostling is taking place in Southeast Asia. Chinese and U.S. companies like Amazon, Alibaba, Nvidia, Google and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok , are building data centers in Singapore and Malaysia to deliver services across the United States has the lead, with U.S. companies building 63 AI computing hubs outside the country's borders, compared with 19 by China, according to the Oxford data. All but three of the data centers operated by Chinese firms outside their home country use chips from Nvidia, despite efforts by China to produce competing chips. Chinese firms were able to buy Nvidia chips before U.S. government U.S.-friendly countries have been left out of the AI race by trade limits. Last year, William Ruto, Kenya's president, visited Washington for a state dinner hosted by President Joe Biden. Several months later, Kenya was omitted from a list of countries that had open access to needed has given China an opening, even though experts consider the country's AI chips to be less advanced. In Africa, policymakers are talking with Huawei, which is developing its own AI chips, about converting existing data centers to include Chinese-made chips, said Koné of Smart Africa."Africa will strike a deal with whoever can give access to GPUs," he by the concentration of AI power, many countries and regions are trying to close the gap. They are providing access to land and cheaper energy, fast-tracking development permits and using public funds and other resources to acquire chips and construct data centers. The goal is to create "sovereign AI" available to local businesses and India, the government is subsidizing compute power and the creation of an AI model proficient in the country's languages. In Africa, governments are discussing collaborating on regional compute hubs. Brazil has pledged $4 billion on AI projects."Instead of waiting for AI to come from China, the U.S., South Korea, Japan, why not have our own?" Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said last year when he proposed the investment in Europe, there is growing concern that U.S. companies control most of the data centers. In February, the European Union outlined plans to invest 200 billion euros for AI projects, including new data centers across the 27-nation Nobauer, the CEO of Exoscale, a cloud computing provider in Switzerland, said many European businesses want to reduce their reliance on U.S. tech companies. Such a change will take time and "doesn't happen overnight," he closing the divide is likely to require help from the United States or data center is part of a $500 million effort to build five such facilities across Africa. Even so, Cassava expects it to address only 10% to 20% of the region's demand for AI. At least 3,000 startups have expressed interest in using the computing systems."I don't think Africa can afford to outsource this AI sovereignty to others," said Hardy Pemhiwa, Cassava's CEO. "We absolutely have to focus on and ensure that we don't get left behind."
Business Insider
03-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Zimbabwe's richest man and the world's 10th richest man push for Africa's first AI factory
Jensen Huang, the tenth-richest person in the world, and Strive Masiyiwa, Africa's 16th richest man, have collaborated on establishing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) factory in Africa, the first of its kind. Jensen Huang and Strive Masiyiwa collaborate to establish Africa's first Artificial Intelligence (AI) factory. The factory is supported by Nvidia's advanced GPUs, with initial installations in South Africa. Cassava Technologies plans to expand GPU deployment across key African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria. Via both billionaires' companies, Masiyiwa's Cassava Technologies, and Huang's Nvidia, one of the largest companies in America currently by valuation, the construction of Africa's first AI factory is now in full effect. Currently, graphics processing units (GPUs) have been deployed to South Africa, the first recipients of the units in Africa. What Strive Masiyiwa about the AI factory 'Collaborating with Nvidia gives us the advanced computing capabilities needed to drive Africa's AI innovation while strengthening the continent's digital independence,' Masiyiwa stated in a press release. Back in April, Cassava Technologies revealed that it was considering an investment of up to $720 million in the AI factory. 'The future comes from young people building apps and solutions, small businesses every day across this continent using AI,' Masiyiwa said at the Global AI Summit on Africa 2025 in Kigali in April, where he was a co-chair. 'They are the digital natives, and we have just given them the ability to do what they do best.' Founded by Zimbabwean telecoms tycoon Strive Masiyiwa, the pan-African tech company aims to roll out Nvidia's accelerated computing systems and AI software across key markets including South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Morocco. Recent reports indicate that Nvidia will embed its AI software utilizing NVIDIA Cloud Partner reference architectures and deploy hundreds of GPUs, which power its high-performance supercomputers. 'Building digital infrastructure for the AI economy is a priority if Africa is to take full advantage of the fourth industrial revolution,' added Masiyiwa in the press statement. 'Our AI Factory provides the infrastructure for this innovation to scale, empowering African businesses, startups, and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure to turn their bold ideas into real-world breakthroughs—and now, they don't have to look beyond Africa to get it.' According to Hardy Pemhiwa, president of Cassava, as seen on Forbes, 3,000 Nvidia GPUs will be installed in their South African plant in June, with an additional 9,000 to be installed throughout the following three to four years in Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt.
IOL News
01-07-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Africa's struggle in the global AI race: Addressing the digital divide
Recently, Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa's Cassava Technologies announced a partnership with Nvidia to build Africa's first artificial intelligence factory. Image: Reuters Africa is lagging far behind in the global AI race. This does not come as a surprise, however, it has now been confirmed and revealed in an Oxford University report titled, AI Compute Sovereignty Infrastructure Control Across Territories, Cloud Providers, and Accelerators'. The report mapped where AI data centres are located. It claims that artificial intelligence has fractured the world between nations with the computing power for building cutting edge AI systems and those without. The report indicates that only 32 countries, or about 16% of nations, have large facilities filled with microchips and computers, which gives them 'computer power'. This revelation should serve as a wake up call to those who care about the sovereignty of different nations. It seems those who should act are more concerned about the appearance of advancement in the AI race. In Africa what we've seen so far is the continuation of what has happened in the past. Africa has just served as a shop front of tech giants and local leaders have been excited about selling global tech to locals. We are witnessing the entry of AI solutions in the form of products for consumption instead of AI development initiatives. The only promising initiative is brought to the continent by Strive Masiyiwa. Recently, Zimbabwean billionaire Masiyiwa's Cassava Technologies announced a partnership with Nvidia to build Africa's first artificial intelligence factory. This isn't just another data centre it's a specialised powerhouse designed specifically for AI computing. It's reported that Cassava plans to use Nvidia's cutting-edge AI technology in South Africa, with expansion planned across Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria. The facility will be powered by Nvidia supercomputers that use GPUs, or graphics processing units. It is envisaged that it will provide what Cassava calls 'AI as a service' across the continent, leveraging an extensive fiber-optic network and energy-efficient data centers. An AI factory is designed to power others to get the benefits that comes with AI. Coined by Nvidia's visionary CEO, Jensen Huang, an AI factory is a specialised environment equipped with the infrastructure needed to manage a complete AI life cycle. It's where raw data enters and trained AI emerges. These facilities streamline the development of AI systems by bringing together data pipelines, algorithm development, and model experimentation into one optimized ecosystem. The beauty with such a concept is that it enables local data to be put into good use for homegrown AI solutions. There's a need for more such AI factories. Clearly, not enough is being done to ensure that the African continent is on an equal footing with nations in the AI race. The current situation calls for an urgent intervention by leaders across the continent. Lack of action in this regard could lead to a situation where the continent will always beg others for just about everything. The first step in this regard could focus on the establishment of an AI Fund sourced from leading African countries for the creation of more local AI factories. Some academics in South Africa have been thinking about this issue, however, little is known about their recommendations. It's about time that all stakeholders begin open discussions about required action to address the new digital divide. Wesley Diphoko is a Technology Analyst and Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company (South Africa) magazine. Image: Supplied
The Sun
05-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Zindi Supports Cassava Technologies with 85 K Zindians to showcase African AI innovation
DUBAI, UAE – Media OutReach Newswire - 5 May 2025 - Zindi, the leading professional network for data scientists and AI developers in emerging markets, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cassava Technologies, a global technology leader of African heritage, to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaas) across the African continent. This partnership represents a significant step in accelerating digital transformation in Africa and will see the two organisations collaborate on several initiatives. These include using Cassava's GPUaaS capabilities for Zindi's AI solution development and identifying opportunities for both organisations to leverage one another's platforms and ecosystems. As Africa's pioneering data science competition platform, Zindi collaborates with companies, non-profit organisations, and government institutions to develop, curate, and prepare data-driven challenges. This partnership underscores their mutual commitment to nurturing AI talent and innovation throughout the continent. Zindi CEO and Co-Founder, Celina Lee states: 'Zindi is thrilled at the opportunity to partner with Cassava Technologies to strengthen African datasets and address local problems with locally developed solutions. Using Cassava's GPU capabilities, which are essential for handling the large and complex computations that AI and machine learning models require, and collaborating on the launch of a competition specifically aimed at nurturing Africa's AI talent will not only expose entrepreneurs and innovative solutions; it will help build new skills and create employment opportunities,' With the signing of this MOU, Cassava and Zindi are set to make significant inroads in Africa's AI landscape. The partnership supports Cassava's objective of providing world-class digital solutions and advancing responsible AI adoption, innovation, and growth in Africa. This follows its recent announcement of its plans to build Africa's first AI factory and the 2024 launch of Cassava's AI business. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Malay Mail
05-05-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
Zindi Supports Cassava Technologies with 85 K Zindians to showcase African AI innovation
DUBAI, UAE – Media OutReach Newswire - 5 May 2025 -, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cassava Technologies, a global technology leader of African heritage, to deliver artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaas) across the African partnership represents a significant step in accelerating digital transformation in Africa and will see the two organisations collaborate on several initiatives. These include using Cassava's GPUaaS capabilities for Zindi's AI solution development and identifying opportunities for both organisations to leverage one another's platforms and Africa's pioneering data science competition platform, Zindi collaborates with companies, non-profit organisations, and government institutions to develop, curate, and prepare data-driven challenges. This partnership underscores their mutual commitment to nurturing AI talent and innovation throughout the the signing of this MOU, Cassava and Zindi are set to make significant inroads in Africa's AI landscape. The partnership supports Cassava's objective of providing world-class digital solutions and advancing responsible AI adoption, innovation, and growth in Africa. This follows its recent announcement of its plans to build Africa's first AI factory and the 2024 launch of Cassava's AI #Zindi The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. About Zindi Zindi is also present in the Caribbean. Join Saturday May 10th 2025 Barbados hackathon Zindi is the first uniquely African data science competition platform. Zindi hosts an entire data science ecosystem of scientists, engineers, academics, companies, NGOs, governments and institutions focused on solving Africa's most pressing problems. Zindi works with companies, non-profit organizations, and government institutions to develop, curate, and prepare data-driven challenges. Solutions are ranked automatically by the accuracy achieved. Whether you are testing the data science waters for the first time or trying to crack a persistent business problem with data, Zindi helps organizations push their creative boundaries at an affordable cost. For data scientists, from newbies to rock stars, Zindi is a place to access African datasets and solve African problems. Data scientists will find all the tools they need on Zindi to compete, share ideas, hone their skills, build their professional profiles, find career opportunities, and have fun!
