The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has approved more than $100 million in financing guarantees for digitalization in Côte d'Ivoire.

This consists of two separate deals, one of which will see the construction of a data center in the country.

Although the September 22 press conference, held in New York City amidst the 80th session of the UN’s General Assembly, was attended by EXIM officials, US tech company Cybastion, networking company Cisco, Citi, and representatives from Cote d’Ivoire and the US Department of State, EXIM had already issued the financing guarantees in August.

The first financing agreement was announced on August 21, and saw EXIM’s Board of Directors approve a $66m guarantee to support the construction of a “national data center” in Côte d’Ivoire. Cybastion will provide the equipment for the facility in cooperation with Cisco, HPE, and Schneider Electric.

Details about the size, capacity, location, and development timelines were not made available.

Cybastion, otherwise known as the Cybastion Institute of Technology LLC, is an American company that focuses on digital transformation in Africa. President and CEO Dr. Thierry Wandji founded the company in 2019, previously working in cybersecurity and intelligence with the US Navy and the Naval Research Laboratory.

The company also has a footprint in the West African states of Benin and Burkina Faso, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Liberia for the establishment of a data center and a subsea cable in September of last year.

One week prior, on August 14, EXIM also approved a $47m transaction to digitalize the country’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, led by Cybastion, Cisco, AWS, Motorola Solutions, and Microsoft.

Both transactions fall under EXIM’s China and Transformation Exports Program, which is intended to “help US exporters facing competition from the People’s Republic of China.” The program allows for extended repayment tenors and exceptions from other EXIM policies, with more benefits provided if the company is working “on the frontiers of technology.”

Acting president and chairman of EXIM, James Cruse, said that “by backing US companies in strategic sectors like data infrastructure and rail, these transactions strengthen [US] economic competitiveness, expand American exports, and ensure that American workers – not competitors in China – remain at the forefront of global trade.”

EXIM, which is America’s official export credit agency, was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. It was briefly shut in 2015 after Congress blocked its reauthorization, but it was reopened in 2019 following support from President Donald Trump, then in his first spell in office.

The bank has previously invested in data center-related technologies, with US small nuclear reactor startup Last Energy receiving a tentative offer of $103.7m in debt financing from the bank last December.