Data centers will benefit Aiken County, economic development executive says

The announcements by Facebook owner Meta and DC BLOX that they are planning to build data centers in Aiken County have generated mixed reactions locally.

“Data centers are a hot topic right now in the news,” said Will Williams, president and CEO of the Western SC Economic Development Partnership on Jan. 16. “Some people love them, and some people hate them.”

He addressed several of the controversies during a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Aiken at the Park Avenue Oyster Bar & Grill.

One complaint about data centers is that they will employ fewer people than companies with manufacturing operations in Aiken County such as Bridgestone Americas, with 1,900 or so workers; Kimberly-Clark Corporation, with approximately 1,200, and Shaw Industries, with approximately 900.

There will be 100 employees at the Meta data center being built in Sage Mill Industrial Park and only one at the DC BLOX facility, which will be constructed in the North Augusta area.

“Would we rather them (data centers) be in Aiken County? Would we rather them somewhere else? [The bottom line is] they’re going to be somewhere,” Williams said. “I don’t see file cabinets for sale anymore. Everything is stored somewhere in a data center. The infrastructure that is put in place from the fiber and everything [for a data center], I equate it to the early 1970s when the interstate, I-20, was built.”

The work it took to construct the superhighway resulted in no real permanent jobs, “but because we have that interstate [now], other jobs have come about,” Williams explained. “That’s one of the benefits.”

And while there won’t be many jobs at the data centers, the ones they plan to offer will help diversify employment locally, Williams told his audience.

“Over time, we’ve been intentional not to put our all our eggs in one basket,” he said. “If you’ve driven [in] or know the Upstate, [you are aware that] there is one big employer, and many, many jobs are associated with one employer, BMW. So if BMW catches a cold, the rest of the area is going to catch pneumonia.”

Also on the plus side, Meta already has shown that it plans to be a good corporate citizen, Williams reported.

To read more visit Aiken Standard online


Aiken Standard reporter
Dede Biles is a reporter for the Aiken Standard. She covers Aiken County government, business and horse industry.

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