TECHNOLOGY firm, Cassava Technologies (Cassava) has launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous network platform designed to transform mobile network performance across Africa, as operators grapple with increasingly complex infrastructure and rising demand for data.
The new solution, unveiled in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday, leverages Nvidia Corporation (NVIDIA) AI infrastructure to automate and self-optimise Radio Access Networks (RAN), reducing manual intervention and cutting fault repair times from days to minutes.
The company described this innovation as a significant step toward intelligent, self-healing telecom networks on the continent.
About a year ago, Cassava announced its partnership with NVIDIA, an American multinational corporation and technology company, to build Africa’s first AI factory to be powered by the latter’s AI computing.
“Cassava Technologies, a global technology leader of African heritage, has announced the launch of Cassava Autonomous Network, an agentic solution designed to significantly improve network performance across Africa,” Cassava said in a statement.
“This solution is the first African-ready, autonomous network designed to self-optimise mobile Radio Access Networks (RAN) and built specifically for the unique complexities of Africa’s connectivity landscape.”
Powered by NVIDIA AI infrastructure, NVIDIA NIM microservices, and NVIDIA Network Configuration Blueprint, Cassava Autonomous Network offers policy-driven automation that replaces manual network adjustments with continuous, intelligent optimisations, reducing operational bottlenecks and increasing efficiency by up to 75%.
Cassava Autonomous Network runs on CAIMEx, a localised multi-model platform that provides unified access to leading AI models through regional AI factories.
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“Cassava Autonomous Network combines NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure with the inclusivity of Africa’s networks’ needs and Cassava’s extensive experience in the telco industry,” Cassava group chief operations officer and group chief technology & AI officer Ahmed El Beheiry said.
“With this solution, we are delivering on a significant step toward intelligent, self-healing, autonomous networks that drive coverage, quality, profitability, and improve customer experience across the continent.”
This comes as African telecom operators currently manage increasingly dense and complex networks under tight resource constraints.
While 4G remains dominant in Africa (GSMA 2024 report), 5G continues to scale, meaning daily optimisation remains a manual bottleneck.
Thus, Cassava Autonomous Network eliminates these inefficiencies by automating the process and reducing repair time for minor issues from four days to approximately 35 minutes.
The solution is also designed to work across all vendors and network generations (2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G), including legacy, hybrid, and cloud-native deployments.
“In today’s multi-vendor landscape, flexibility is the ultimate currency,” El Beheiry said.
“Cassava Autonomous Networks provides a truly open architecture that respects existing RAN investments while introducing advanced agentic AI capabilities.
“Our solution allows telco operators to supercharge their hardware systems.”
Cassava is the digital services and digital infrastructure arm of Econet Global Limited, the South Africa-headquartered technology firm belonging to Zimbabwean billionaire and the country’s richest man, Strive Masiyiwa.
Econet Global has the majority shareholding in local telco, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe.
