Zimbabwean billionaire and founding father of Cassava Applied sciences, Try Masiyiwa, who simply introduced a partnership with Nvidia to launch Venture Mufungi, Africa’s first AI manufacturing unit, has mentioned the concept was impressed by Nigeria’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Masiyiwa shared this in a prolonged Fb submit on Monday, detailing how a dialog with Dangote and Obasanjo seven years in the past in Singapore pushed him to tackle bold tasks that may remodel Africa’s technological panorama.
“I’ll always remember the day seven years in the past after I had espresso with my pal Aliko Dangote and our ‘Baba’ [as we call former President Obasanjo] at an occasion in Singapore,” Masiyiwa recalled. “Baba challenged us each that day to ‘do greater issues for Africa… stuff you guys can now do!’”
In line with Masiyiwa, Dangote shared his imaginative and prescient to construct a refinery, an bold mission that has since materialized at a value of $19 billion. On the time, Masiyiwa had already been engaged on constructing the Liquid continental fiber community to make sure no African was left behind within the digital revolution, however the dialog made him really feel compelled to do much more.
The turning level got here when he attended a panel dialogue the place a number of audio system claimed Africa would stay a mere client of AI as a result of the price of computing energy was past the continent’s attain.
“Sitting there, I believed to myself, ‘If Aliko can elevate $19 billion, absolutely I ought to have the ability to elevate just a few billion {dollars} to get AI Compute began in Africa. In any case, we have already got a lot of the key parts proper right here in our personal firms!’”
Masiyiwa revealed that when he later talked about his concept to Dangote and their mutual pal, Prof Benedict Oramah, the President of Afreximbank, they each inspired him to pursue it.
“After I talked about this to Aliko the subsequent time we met, this time along with our pal Prof Oramah of Afreximbank, they had been egging me on to do it.
My brother, you bought this. It’s your discipline now. In case you can’t do it, then who?’ Aliko joked earlier than including: ‘Don’t neglect Nigeria!
Prof’ [as we call Prof Oramah] as normal simply mentioned, ‘We’re at all times there for you as Afreximbank, though additionally, you will need to go international for such funding.’ That’s how he has spoken to me for over 30 years now,” Masiyiwa mentioned.
Now, in partnership with Nvidia, Masiyiwa’s Cassava Applied sciences is launching “Venture Mufungi,” an initiative that can set up high-performance AI computing infrastructure throughout Africa.
“Our AI manufacturing unit offers the infrastructure for this innovation to scale, empowering African companies, startups, and researchers with entry to cutting-edge AI infrastructure to show their daring concepts into real-world breakthroughs. And now they don’t need to look past Africa to get it,” Masiyiwa mentioned.
The transfer additionally comes amid rising curiosity in Africa’s digital infrastructure from international expertise companies.
With backing from companions like Nvidia and Afreximbank, the mission is predicted to catalyze additional investments in Africa’s digital economic system, serving to to shut the AI divide between the continent and the remainder of the world.
