Telecommunications group Vodafone Business and global technology leader Cassava Technologies have teamed up to launch Egypt’s first AI factory to develop and enable advanced sovereign AI infrastructure.

The new AI factory, operating diverse AI applications and use cases locally, enhances the country’s ability to host and process data, with the strategic partnership between the parties strengthening Egypt’s regional position as a hub for data centres and AI investments.

The impact of the partnership, which leverages NVIDIA accelerated computing technologies through Vodafone’s partnership with Cassava Technologies, the first NVIDIA cloud partner in Africa, extends to government entities, key industry sectors and consumers by providing full-stack AI infrastructure that supports local data hosting and processing in compliance with regulatory requirements.

This enhances cybersecurity, offers greater control over data and its protection, accelerates the adoption of modern technologies, and enables organisations to develop more efficient and innovative AI solutions and services.

It will also attract investments, support digital economy growth and create new job opportunities in technology and innovation.

“Our partnership with Cassava Technologies marks a pivotal step in Vodafone Egypt’s technology journey and reflects our continued commitment to investing in digital infrastructure that enhances Egypt’s readiness for advanced technologies,” said Vodafone Egypt enterprise business VP Mahmoud El-Khatib.

“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 continued, noting that this is achieved through the delivery of GPU-as-a-Service, enabling organisations to access advanced computing capabilities more efficiently and rapidly.

“For Cassava, contributing to building Egypt’s AI ecosystem is an act of empowerment, not just a technological milestone. We are ensuring that African businesses are not just consumers of global technology, they are the architects of it,” said Cassava group chief technology and AI officer and Cassava AI CEO Ahmed El Beheiry.

An ambition of the partnership is to provide Egypt the infrastructure to unlock the potential of its technology industry and to allow it to contribute to the global AI innovation scene, without compromising sovereignty.

Organisations and government entities in Egypt will be able to access NVIDIA AI infrastructure through Vodafone Business, as a strategic partner.

This will enhance their ability to develop and operate AI applications at scale – capabilities that are particularly important given the growing demand for accelerated computing, which forms the backbone of modern AI infrastructure for model training and inference at scale.

Further, the collaboration provides access to specialised training and enablement programmes in the NVIDIA ecosystem, helping organisations build AI skills and deploy and manage AI solutions more effectively.

This development comes at a time when countries are complementing global public cloud services, with localised sovereign compute and AI-optimised neocloud services.

The partnership enhances Egypt’s readiness to attract investments related to AI and advanced data centres by combining high-performance computing capabilities with local data hosting, supporting the development of a comprehensive sovereign AI ecosystem and reinforcing Egypt’s position as a regional hub for advanced technology and digital infrastructure.

This is in line with Vodafone Egypt’s long-term investment strategy, with the AI factory representing a strategic project within the company’s plan to invest more than EGP20-billion during the current financial year and building on investments exceeding EGP125-billion over 28 years.