Africa’s technology leaders have opened the 28th annual Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town with a collective call for responsible and inclusive innovation, as artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure emerge as key growth drivers across the continent.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, South Africa’s Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, urged coordinated efforts between governments and the private sector to ensure Africa’s participation in the global AI economy.
He said the continent’s digital transformation must rest on three pillars: affordable connectivity, reliable digital infrastructure, and digital literacy.
“When these foundations are strong, everything else accelerates,” Malatsi said, emphasizing that inclusive access and ethical governance will be critical to achieving meaningful social impact.
The opening session brought together senior officials and executives from Cassava Technologies, OpenAI, Meta, and other global and regional players, signalling renewed momentum in aligning public and private priorities for Africa’s digital future.
In one of the day’s major business announcements, Cassava Technologies revealed it has become Africa’s first NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP), deploying advanced GPUs across five sites to power the region’s AI innovation ecosystem.
Executive Chairman Strive Masiyiwa said the partnership will expand Africa’s access to high-performance computing and accelerate the development of local AI solutions tailored to African markets.
Deputy Minister Mondli Gungubele added that digital governance remains central to South Africa’s strategy, noting the country’s national AI policy serves as a blueprint for ensuring innovation remains “sovereign, interoperable, and human-centred.”
The festival’s AI Summit Cape Town featured key discussions on language diversity, open-source innovation, and ethical AI, with contributions from OpenAI’s Emmanuel Lubanzadio and Meta’s Thabo Makenete.
Running through the week, the Africa Tech Festival 2025 is showcasing advances in AI, cloud computing, and connectivity through four flagship programmes—AfricaCom, AfricaTech, The AI Summit Cape Town, and AfricaIgnite—positioning Africa’s technology sector as a growing force in the global digital economy.