Meta is putting more than $800 million into a large data center in Aiken County’s Sage Mill Industrial Park, scheduled to come online in 2027.
DC BLOX is planning a North Augusta facility with an initial $22.65 million spend that could quadruple over time, signaling room for more AI and cloud capacity in the region.
Oppidan and its subsidiary Clop Aiken SC LLC are backing another 60,000-square-foot data center in Graniteville/Vaucluse with at least $32 million in investment.
Local pushback centers on heavy power and water use and relatively low headcount compared with manufacturing, which matters as AI workloads drive higher rack densities and energy demands.
Meta is countering with sustainability commitments, claiming it will match 100% of its energy use on the grid and target water positive operations by 2030, which could shape future permitting norms for GPU-heavy builds.
County leaders are betting that tax revenue and job diversification from multiple data center operators will outweigh resource concerns and community friction.
The article is worth a read to understand how a smaller market is positioning itself in the power- and water-hungry AI data center wave.
