The World Bank Group, a family of five international institutions that provides loans, grants, and technical advice to developing countries, has announced the AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative to improve access to AI infrastructure in Africa and Latin America with Cassava Technologies, a digital infrastructure builder and manager, and NVIDIA as knowledge partners.
The initiative forms part of the World Bank Group’s first digital strategy, which aims to expand connectivity, lower the price of devices and data, strengthen digital services and skills, and help countries build a foundation to benefit from AI. According to a press release the strategy brings together the group’s financing, policy advice, private investment, and guarantees around country priorities.
“Digital technology can help countries create jobs and make scarce resources go further. Realizing that potential requires a comprehensive approach—from reliable connectivity and affordable devices to digital skills and useful services,” said Ajay Banga, World Bank Group President. “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.”
The AI Infrastructure and Readiness Initiative will give governments in emerging markets access to shared, pay-as-you-go GPU infrastructure as an alternative to standalone data centers.
The World Bank Group says it will support countries in assessing their needs and accessing fit-for-purpose AI compute capacity. This can take the form of cloud-based AI compute, distributed compute, regionally shared infrastructure, or sovereign national compute. To fund this strategy, the World Bank Group will create the Digital Access Fund to expand financing options for difficult markets. This investment fund, anchored by the International Finance Corporation, will aim to bring in capital from multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, philanthropies, the private sector, and other global investors to pool financing. The exact mechanics of this fund are yet to be determined.
In November 2025, McKinsey & Company projected that data center demand in Africa would grow from about 400 MW to between 1.5 GW and 2.2 GW by 2030. However, the consulting firm highlighted that demand would evolve unevenly and that, even with the best intentions, power reliability, regulations, and infrastructure readiness would ultimately determine whether demand is met.
When it comes to AI compute, the African continent is very far behind the rest of the world, and while there is talk of establishing AI data centers in many African nations, those plans are sporadic and prone to unraveling, as has happened in Kenya where an AI data center project stalled over major power grid constraints.