The US Embassy in Yaoundé announced on August 27, 2026 that an American investor will build an artificial-intelligence data center in Douala. Cybastion, a Virginia-based company, plans to spend $75 million, roughly 45 billion FCFA, including a dedicated power plant to secure the site's electricity supply.
The announcement came alongside the Cameroon-US Economic and Commercial Dialogue held in Yaoundé, where a roughly $7 billion portfolio of investment opportunities between the two countries was presented. The Douala project is part of that portfolio, but remains subject to financial close and validation of an execution timeline: nothing is yet finalized on the ground.
This is not Cybastion's first move on the continent. In Côte d'Ivoire, the company runs a $170 million portfolio, more than $100 million of it guaranteed by the US Exim Bank for a sovereign data center in Grand-Bassam, alongside cybersecurity components. That Ivorian track record is, for now, the main guarantee of the Cameroonian project's seriousness.
Douala was chosen for its economic weight: the country's economic capital already concentrates most digital activity, making it a natural anchor point for an operator looking to expand into Central Africa.
The dedicated power plant addresses a very concrete obstacle rather than a mere precaution: Cameroon's chronically fragile electricity grid regularly slows digital infrastructure projects across the continent, and securing its own power supply lets Cybastion sidestep that from the outset.
The bulk of the work still lies ahead: financial close, actual grid connection, and alignment with a national digital-sovereignty strategy that has yet to be spelled out will determine whether the project materializes.
The initiative joins a string of recent US announcements in Central Africa, at a time when Washington, Beijing and Gulf investors are increasingly competing openly for the continent's digital infrastructure.
