Operating under the powerful mission of “One Cloud, One Africa”, this launch is powered by a strategic partnership with TouchNet, a leading Africa Technology Services provider whose extensive experience in delivering cutting-edge technology infrastructure across Africa, ensuring UniCloudAfrica’s platform is built on a robust, scalable foundation tailored to the continent’s unique needs.

It immediately provides African enterprises and governments with a world-class, highly certified, financially optimized, and fully compliant alternative to expensive, high-latency offshore cloud providers.

The announcement was made at a media briefing in Lagos, where Mr Ladi Okuneye, CEO of Unicloud Africa, declared “The platform is the foundation for Africa’s true Digital and Financial Independence”.

The Unicloud Africa Advantage: Performance, Compliance, and Cost Certainty

Unicloud Africa’s platform is engineered to solve the most critical pain points for African businesses by delivering on three core pillars:

1. Financial Sovereignty and Predictable Costs

We eliminate the financial uncertainty and hidden costs that hinder growth:

• Local Currency Billing: Enterprises can now pay for world-class cloud services in their local currency, eliminating the burden of foreign exchange (FX) volatility and unpredictable costs.
• Zero Data Egress Fees: We guarantee no data egress fees, ensuring predictable monthly billing and allowing businesses to retrieve their own data freely, a major cost differentiator.
• OpEx Model: The platform is delivered on a flexible, pay-per-use, OpEx model, freeing up business capital by removing the need for significant CapEx on IT infrastructure.

2. Certified Security and Guaranteed Resilience

Unicloud Africa is built on global standards of trust and compliance:

• Sovereign Data Compliance: All sensitive data, particularly for AI/ML and Big Data, is guaranteed to be hosted and processed 100% in-country. This is critical for regulatory adherence in finance, healthcare, and government across Africa.
• Maximum Uptime: Our architecture delivers two active-active availability zones and features a contractual 999% SLA on storage, providing the unmatched resilience required for mission-critical enterprise workloads.
• Global Certifications: The platform operates under the highest global standards, including ISO 27001 (Information Security) and ISO 22301 (Business Continuity).

3. AI Acceleration and Technical Leadership

“We are democratizing access to the computing power needed for the next wave of innovation”, the CEO said.

From use cases where financial services are enabled with real-time fraud detection to accelerating medical research through AI-driven analytics, UnicloudAfrica’s GPUaaS empowers organizations to harness AI at scale:

• GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS): High-performance, GPU-enabled cloud servers are available on demand, providing the specialized compute power needed to run complex AI models and large-scale applications.
• Developer Compatibility: Our services are compatible and provide a familiar feature set that aligns with leading global cloud platform environments, ensuring rapid adoption by local and international development teams.

“A Strategic Shift for African Competitiveness”

“For too long, African enterprises have been held back by the financial burden and compliance risks of offshore cloud platforms,” said Mr Ladi Okuneye, CEO of Unicloud Africa.

“This is a strategic shift. We are providing world-class infrastructure, backed by local currency billing, zero egress fees, and the peace of mind of ISO-certified, in-country data management. Unicloud Africa is the definitive foundation for Africa’s true digital and financial independence.“

“By partnering with Unicloud Africa, TouchNet is directly accelerating Africa’s digital transformation. We are delivering secure, scalable, and locally optimized AI Cloud infrastructure that empowers businesses and governments to modernize operations, drive innovation, and secure their data locally. This platform is a testament to our commitment to a connected and sovereign Africa”, said Mr Charly Bahous CEO of TouchNet.

Dr Ayotunde Coker, CEO of OADC also mentioned

”We firmly believe that fully localised cloud infrastructure is critical for economic growth and Africa’s digital future. This is why OADC is fully committed to collaborating with and providing all needed support to partners like UniCloud Africa, who are key to realizing a truly unified African digital ecosystem.”

The solutions will enable Cassava’s existing and potential customers to process AI workloads and data within national borders in alignment with local requirements and regulations.  

Cassava will begin in South Africa and later expand into Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria.

This phased rollout is in line with Cassava’s expansions planned at its other data centre facilities across Africa.

Cassava will leverage the company’s pan-African high-speed, ultra-low-latency, fibre broadband network, which interconnects the company’s energy-efficient data centres to power AI computing workloads. 

“AI is opening up exciting new opportunities for sparking innovation, advancing competitiveness and driving growth across Africa,” said Mauro Macchi, CEO of Accenture for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “With our deep, global experience in sovereign cloud and AI, Accenture will help Cassava deliver secure, scalable sovereign AI solutions and reimagine its operations. Together, we will enable organizations across the African continent to adopt AI with confidence and unlock new ways to create value.” 

“With our GPUaaS, Cassava will drive the continent’s AI revolution by allowing businesses to access compute power based on their individual needs. This is our commitment to ensuring Africa has the infrastructure and access it needs to compete in the AI era – AI isn’t just a technology story; it’s a nation-building story with inclusion at its centre,” said Ahmed El Beheiry, CEO of Cassava AI. “Collaborating with Accenture allows us to leverage their global expertise in building a sovereign AI cloud capability designed for the African market. This partnership will strengthen data governance, drive practical AI adoption across key industries, and ensure that we provide African solutions for African challenges.” 

Through this collaboration, the two companies will integrate the context, languages, and cultural nuances of the region into these AI solutions, ensuring that the solutions/services are relevant and impactful for African enterprises across key sectors such as financial services, mining, telecommunications, agriculture, and healthcare.

This localised approach will not only strengthen compliance and trust but also ensure that the technology reflects the realities of the markets it serves, enabling businesses to innovate in ways that are meaningful and sustainable. 

Cassava will invest in the infrastructure and platform build-out to ensure readiness for commercialisation, with a focus on scalability, security, and compliance, thereby reinforcing its broader commitment to responsible AI adoption, innovation and productivity growth in Africa.