World Bank launches first digital strategy; shared pay-as-you-go AI computing to start in Africa and Latin America

The World Bank Group launched its first digital strategy on 20 October and, alongside it, the AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative, which aims to help governments in emerging markets get affordable computing power for artificial intelligence through shared, pay-as-you-go GPU infrastructure. The initiative will start in Africa and Latin America, with the pan-African technology group Cassava Technologies and Nvidia among its knowledge partners.

The bank announced both in a statement datelined Seoul, where it is hosting the Global AI and Digital Summit with South Korea's Ministry of Finance and Economy and Ministry of Science and ICT from 19 to 22 October.

GPUs, or graphics processing units, are chips first built for real-time graphics that have become the dominant platform for deep learning. Instead of each country building its own national data centre, governments would draw on shared GPU infrastructure and pay for what they use. The bank calls this "a practical alternative to standalone national data centers". The announcement "did not specify participating countries, sites, capacity, pricing or a funding envelope", the news site Streamline Feed said on 20 October.

The strategy sets four priorities: reliable connectivity, more affordable devices and data, digital services and skills such as digital ID and payments, and readiness for AI. Safeguards for privacy, cybersecurity and fraud apply across all four. On AI, it emphasises what the bank calls "small AI", tools adapted to specific tasks and local conditions.

Under its @A Billion programme, the bank aims to reach 1 billion people with digital access and services by 2030: 600 million using broadband internet and 400 million using digitally enabled services. These are targets, not guarantees.

"Digital technology can help countries create jobs and make scarce resources go further," World Bank Group President Ajay Banga said in the statement. "Our first digital strategy brings these pieces together, helping countries build the foundations to benefit from today's digital tools and the promise of small AI—AI for the people."

At the summit, Banga warned that advances in AI could deepen inequality if countries lack the infrastructure and resources to benefit. "You don't want other countries to get left behind," he said, as quoted by South Korea's Aju Press. "You certainly don't want inequality to expand."

The statement says 1.2 billion young people will reach working age in developing countries over the next 10 to 15 years, while their economies are projected to create about 420 million jobs. More than 2 billion people worldwide were offline in 2025, and only 23 per cent of people in low-income countries used the internet, against 94 per cent in high-income countries.

The bank's Africa Economic Update, released on 6 October, said AI activity in sub-Saharan Africa was "concentrated in a small number of economies, notably Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa", and listed compute infrastructure among the investments needed to realise AI's benefits.

Cassava, founded by Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, who is its executive chairman, already sells AI computing in Africa. In a release reported by Nigeria's BusinessDay on 18 March 2026, Cassava said it was deploying its AI Factory, powered by Nvidia's AI platform, in South Africa, with plans to scale to Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco. It offers the capacity as GPU-as-a-Service and AI-as-a-Service. The release gave no date for Kenya.

In March 2025, Cassava said it would deploy Nvidia computing at its South African data centres by June 2025, with expansion planned at its other data centre facilities in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. In November 2025 the trade publication Intelligent CIO Africa reported that the roll-out had begun with 3,000 Nvidia GPUs delivered to a Cassava-built facility in South Africa, and that a further 12,000 GPUs would be deployed across Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and Morocco over the following three to four years.

"Our goal is to give Africa the infrastructure to write its own future, using its own languages," Ahmed El Beheiry, Cassava's Group COO and Group Chief Technology & AI Officer, said in the March 2026 release, adding that it would start with Swahili.

The summit has brought together about 900 participants from around 160 countries, according to South Korea's Ministry of Finance and Economy.