Pan-African technology group Cassava Technologies has become an authorised reseller of Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models, giving businesses, governments and universities across the continent a local channel through which to buy and build on the AI system.

Under the arrangement, announced this week and reported by TechTrendsKE, BusinessDay Nigeria and the Financial Gazette, Cassava will sell access to Claude through Amazon Bedrock, the Amazon Web Services platform that lets companies use large AI models inside their own applications.

What the deal means

Organisations that buy through Cassava will be able to use Claude for tasks such as reasoning over documents, analysing images, writing and reviewing code, and working across multiple languages, the company says. Having a reseller on the continent is meant to make it easier for African customers to pay for and get support on such services locally, rather than dealing directly with overseas providers.

"What matters to our customers is being able to use AI in their business, and that starts with access to the best models," said Hardy Pemhiwa, Cassava's president and group chief executive. He said the company's aim is to put advanced AI "within reach of every business, government, researcher" in the markets it serves.

Part of a wider AI push

Cassava, founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, owns Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which runs one of Africa's largest fibre networks, as well as Africa Data Centres, which operates facilities in several countries including Kenya. Its fintech arm, Sasai, reports about $4.9 billion in annual transaction value.

The Claude agreement is the latest in a string of AI moves by the group:

  • An AI factory powered by Nvidia chips at its South African data centres, offering GPU computing as a service
  • Deployment of Nvidia's open Nemotron models for businesses in its markets
  • A knowledge-partner role, announced last week, in a World Bank initiative to give emerging-market governments shared, pay-as-you-go access to AI computing power

Its cybersecurity arm, Liquid C2, had earlier partnered with Google Cloud and Anthropic in 2024 to offer AI services to African firms.

Kenya's AI moment

The deal comes as Kenyan companies and public agencies step up experiments with generative AI while the country's legal framework is still being written. A Senate committee this month rejected the Artificial Intelligence Bill, sending it back for redrafting, while the ICT Ministry has been gathering public views on a national AI and emerging technologies policy.

Cost, local data hosting and skills are often cited as the main barriers to AI adoption on the continent, and companies with local infrastructure such as Cassava are pitching themselves as a way around the first two. Cassava did not disclose pricing or the financial terms of its agreement with Anthropic.

Photos: TechTrendsKE; Cassava Technologies. Logos: Cassava Technologies, Anthropic. Thumbnail design: HAMASTA MEDIA.