Sthembiso Dlamini, chief executive of South Africa’s Gauteng Growth and Development Agency (GGDA), recently conducted an official site visit to Cassava Technologies following the company’s R1.75 billion data centre investment — a signal of the growing government interest in supporting large-scale digital infrastructure projects within the province.
Cassava Technologies, founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, has been aggressively expanding its data-centre footprint across the continent, positioning itself as a key player in Africa’s push to build AI-ready infrastructure locally rather than relying entirely on capacity based abroad. Government-level engagement of this kind — a formal site visit from a provincial development agency head — often signals interest in further public-private collaboration, whether through incentives, infrastructure support, or streamlined regulatory approval for future expansion phases.
The visit comes against the backdrop of a broader continental trend: African data centre capacity is projected to more than double by the early 2030s, with markets like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt leading the charge as global cloud providers increasingly localize their operations to meet data sovereignty requirements and reduce latency for African users.