AIKEN, S.C. () – Aiken announced the creation of the Aiken Innovation Corridor at the annual ‘State of Our Community’ event as well as the Aiken County Chamber Foundation with plans to open in 2027.

The Aiken Innovation Corridor is a collaborative effort involving the Aiken Chamber of Commerce and Meta, aimed at boosting local business and community development.

Jim Tunison, President and CEO of the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, emphasized the positive impact of large companies investing in the community, stating, “We believe if we have a thriving business community that our overall community is going to do well and be successful too.”

Andrew Siders, Vice Chairman for the Aiken County Council, noted the potential for growth and new businesses, saying, “We have had a lot of growth, we’ve had a lot of different sectors because we have Kimberly Clark, we have Savannah River Site, we have a lot of places that employ a lot of people, so something like this, you’re going to have ancillary businesses stemming from this so that’s very exciting.”

Meta has integrated themselves into Aiken’s community and a representative with Meta said they are thrilled to be able to add another data center to the map. 

Will Williams, President and CEO of the Western South Carolina Economic Development Partnership, noted that with the Cyber Center on Fort Gordon, they wanted to help those not in the military “A data center was something that I had talked with other economic development colleagues in the industry around the country and they talked about how data center had helped their community in terms of not only linking things together but just the jobs and the other impacts to the community.” 

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