US grants 66 million USD to Ivory Coast to build a data center
August 25th 2025
Côte d’Ivoire is making data centers a priority in the digital sector. However, implementing these infrastructures requires colossal funding, often beyond the state’s means, paving the way for external partnerships and support.
The board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), the U.S. export credit agency, approved a $66 million guarantee on Thursday, August 22, to finance the construction of a national data center in Côte d’Ivoire. The project aims to strengthen the security and management of Ivorian public information, while providing increased storage and processing capacity to support the country’s digital economy. According to the EXIM press release, the U.S. company Cybastion Institute of Technology, LLC, will provide the equipment needed to support the data center.
This initiative is part of the China and Transformational Exports Program (CTEP), an EXIM scheme designed to support US technology exports in the face of growing competition from the People’s Republic of China. It comes just days after the announcement of additional funding of $47 million for the digitalization of the Ivorian Ministry of Trade and Industry. Together, these projects are expected to modernize the country’s digital sector.
According to the World Bank, the digital economy could generate more than $5.5 billion for Côte d’Ivoire by 2025 and exceed $20 billion by 2050, provided that the government and the private sector invest massively in the five fundamental pillars of digital technology: infrastructure, platforms, financial services, entrepreneurship, and skills.
It should be remembered that the country currently has a limited number of large-capacity data centers, most of which are concentrated around Abidjan and dedicated to private players. The construction of another national center should meet both the growing need for secure hosting of public data and the growth of digital services for businesses and government agencies.
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