Market guide / South Carolina

South Carolina is not one data center market, and buying it as one is the mistake.

The Upstate looks toward Atlanta, York County is part of the Charlotte metro, the Midlands is its own small enterprise market, and the Lowcountry carries the state's largest investment and exactly one registered interconnection building. This is a statewide page for that reason. The counties are also moving faster than the projects: two of them have imposed data center moratoriums since December 2025, and a third has seen the same organised opposition.

South Carolina colocation market
Market profile

Why this is a statewide page rather than a metro one

South Carolina is covered here the way Indiana and Nevada are, as a state rather than a city, because no single metro in it carries enough to be read on its own and because the four that matter point in four different directions. That is not a criticism of the state. It is the shape of the market, and a buyer who understands it will shortlist better than one who asks for "South Carolina" and gets a list.

The Upstate, meaning Greenville and Spartanburg along the Interstate 85 corridor, is the largest concentration of interconnected buildings in the state and functions as the southern end of the Charlotte to Atlanta axis. York County, immediately south of Charlotte, is economically part of that metro rather than of South Carolina: the one campus in our permit record there is named for Charlotte by its own operator. The Midlands around Columbia is a small, real enterprise market anchored by state government and the university. And the Lowcountry, meaning Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties, holds the largest investment announced anywhere in the state and exactly one building in the public interconnection record.

Read those four separately. A requirement in Greenville and a requirement in Charleston have almost nothing in common except a state line, and the utilities, the politics and the available buildings differ across them.

Buying power in a vertically integrated state with a political problem

South Carolina has no retail electric choice. Dominion Energy South Carolina serves part of the state, the state-owned Santee Cooper serves another part directly and supplies the electric cooperatives that serve much of the rest, and rates are set in public proceedings rather than negotiated. As in North Carolina next door, the terms that move your bill are argued in a docket.

What makes this state different right now is that the politics have turned. Data center proposals in three counties have drawn organised opposition since late 2025, and the counties have responded with moratoriums rather than conditions: Colleton advanced one after a gigawatt-scale proposal near the ACE Basin, and Spartanburg paused every pending application for a year. Marion County has drawn the same organised opposition without our having confirmed a moratorium there. The legislature has been considering how to regulate the industry, including who pays for the generation these loads require. South Carolina utilities told regulators in March 2026 that the volume of data center proposals was declining.

For a tenant that is mostly good news and one specific risk. The good news is that an existing, energised, permitted building has just become considerably more valuable relative to a planned one, and this state has some. The risk is that anything described to you as "expanding" or "phase two" may be sitting behind a county process that did not exist when the proposal was written. Ask which county, and ask what its current position is, before you weigh a growth commitment at all.

The question that separates a real answer from a good one

Ask whether the building you are being offered is already permitted and energised for the capacity in the proposal, or whether any part of that capacity depends on a future county approval. In most markets that question is about timing. In South Carolina in 2026 it is about whether the expansion is legal to apply for this year, which is a different kind of answer, and the operator will know.

Which of our four collections reaches South Carolina, and which does not

Three do. The permit layer is here through the federal air permit record for the state, which names the operator where one is identifiable, and it holds three filings. The interconnection layer is here from PeeringDB, and every row links to the building's own public entry. The announced layer is here and is collected by hand. The fourth is not: our verified facility inventory does not extend to South Carolina, so this page carries no building count rather than a zero standing in for one. One limit is worth stating in advance, because it shapes the permit table below. The air permit source was aimed at the Richland and Fairfield corridor and has found nothing there. All three filings it holds are elsewhere, in Berkeley, York and Spartanburg counties, and the page reports where they actually are. See how we verify capacity for what each collection proves.

What has been announced in South Carolina

Announcements are not filings. Nobody has to build what they announce, the figure is the one the developer chose to publish, and the date moves. They are here because megawatts are what a requirement is measured in, and because the size of what is coming changes who will take your call. Every figure below was read on the page it links to.

Announced, not filed1 projectLargest: 1 GW
CapacityOperatorProjectWhat was announced
1 GWEagle Rock PartnersGreen Pond campus, Colleton CountyAn 860 acre campus near Green Pond on a reported $6 billion, which would be the first gigawatt-scale site in the state. It is speculative: the developer has said it has no tenant. Colleton County advanced a moratorium on data center decisions after residents and seven state legislators came out against it, and the gas plant and pipeline that would power it are not expected to run until the 2030s. Announced capacity at full build-out
Read this before quoting any of it

One row, and the largest investment in the state is not in it. Google has committed $9 billion to expand its Berkeley County campus and build two more in Dorchester County, and has published no megawatt figure for any of them, so there is nothing here to cite. The row that does exist is the weakest kind: a speculative campus with no tenant, no power before the 2030s and a county moratorium in its way. Read the whole state as unsettled rather than as supply. Colleton and Spartanburg counties have both moved on moratoriums since December 2025, Spartanburg's pausing every pending application for a year, Marion has drawn the same opposition, and one Spartanburg applicant first approved by state regulators at about 50 MW has since sought to amend to 450 MW. South Carolina utilities told regulators in March 2026 that data center proposals were declining. Read the reporting.

Announced capacity is collected by hand from trade reporting and company statements, and each figure links to the report it came from. It is kept apart from the permit record above and never added to it: one is a document a jurisdiction issued, the other is a plan a company published. Neither is availability.

Who is actually plugged in across South Carolina

A building existing and a building being connected are different facts, and only one of them decides whether your traffic can get where it needs to go cheaply. These figures come from PeeringDB, which the network operators themselves maintain, so every row below links to the building's own public entry.

Public record7 buildings listed18 network presences
MeasureFigureWhat it means
Buildings listed7Registered in PeeringDB across South Carolina, by 3 operators
Buildings with a network present7Every listed building has at least one network in it
Network presences18Counted per building, so a carrier in three buildings counts three times
Internet exchange presences1Where you can reach many networks through one port instead of many cross-connects
Carrier presences2The physical transport choice you can buy without leaving the building
In the densest building22%DartPoints Greenville, SC - GSP1 holds 4 of the market's network presences

The most connected buildings here

NetworksBuildingOperatorExchangesCarriers
4DartPoints Greenville, SC - GSP1DartPoints, LLC10
4DartPoints Spartanburg, SC - SPA1DartPoints, LLC00
3DartPoints Charleston, SC - CHS1DartPoints, LLC00
2DC BLOX GSP1 - DCBLOX GreenvilleDC BLOX Parent LLC01
2DartPoints Columbia, SC - CAE1DartPoints, LLC00
2HSW-DC1RHHigh Speed Web, Inc.00
1DC BLOX MYR1 - DCBLOX Myrtle BeachDC BLOX Parent LLC01

From PeeringDB, which is maintained by the network operators present in these buildings rather than by the landlords, which is what makes it worth more than a directory. Two limits. Entries are voluntary, so a building showing no networks may be single tenant or may simply never have registered. And a network being present says nothing about whether the building has space, power or a price for you: that is still a call.

What the public construction record shows, and one thing it reveals

Three filings, three sites, and each one tells you something about how this state is actually organised. One is in Moncks Corner in Berkeley County, the Lowcountry, filed under a holding company name that identifies nobody. One is a compute facility in Spartanburg, in the Upstate. And one is a QTS campus in Rock Hill that the operator itself has numbered as a Charlotte site, which is the clearest available evidence that York County belongs to that metro rather than to this state's market. Air permits record an intention to emit, which in practice means generators, so these prove construction and name the builder where the filing does, and they carry no capacity figure and no floor area.

South Carolina air permits, filed statewide and landing in Berkeley, York and Spartanburg counties. Every figure below is a count of filings we collected ourselves, and every row links to the record it came from.

Our collectionNo filing dates published3 filings tracked
MeasureFigureWhat it means
Filings we track3Deduplicated. One source, no dated record to no dated record
Distinct addresses3Separate sites in the record, not separate buildings
Operators we can name11 of 3 filings name a recognizable operator. The rest name an engineer, a builder or a holding company
Filings with no date published3The source publishes the facility, not the filing date

Operators appearing by name: QTS (1).

Collected from EPA ECHO air facility records for South Carolina. A permit proves that construction is happening. It does not prove that space is available, and no public filing anywhere discloses what is contractible at a named building. That answer comes from an operator call, which is the part we do by hand. See how we verify capacity.

The four markets inside the state

The Upstate: Greenville and Spartanburg

The largest concentration of interconnected buildings in the state and the most straightforward place to put an ordinary enterprise requirement. It sits on the Charlotte to Atlanta corridor, which means route diversity is genuinely available. Note that Spartanburg County has paused new data center applications for a year, so treat any growth commitment there as contingent.

York County: functionally Charlotte

Rock Hill and the towns along the state line are part of the Charlotte metro in every way that matters to a buyer, including the way operators name their own campuses here. If your requirement is really a Charlotte requirement, read our Charlotte guide alongside this page, because the utility, the labour market and the fibre routes are that market's rather than this one's.

The Midlands: Columbia

A small, real enterprise market anchored by state government, the university and the health systems. One interconnected building in the public record. It suits a regional production or recovery position with people in Columbia, and it does not suit a requirement that needs choice between operators.

The Lowcountry: Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester

Where the largest investment in the state has been committed and where the public interconnection record holds a single building, registered at an address in Ladson rather than in Charleston itself. Neither of those facts is a mistake. The campuses here are single tenant and none of them is space anyone can lease, and the multi-tenant buildings a colocation buyer would want have largely never been built.

When South Carolina is right, and when it is the wrong choice

South Carolina is the right answer when your business is here. For a manufacturer along the Interstate 85 corridor, a state agency or health system in the Midlands, or a company with staff in Greenville, the Upstate in particular offers real buildings, a genuine choice of routes and costs below the metros on either side of it. It is also a reasonable independent site for an organisation already in Atlanta or Charlotte, though the York County caveat above applies: a Rock Hill building is not independent of Charlotte in any meaningful sense.

It is the wrong choice if you are buying on the strength of the state's headline investments. The largest commitments here are hyperscale self-builds in the Lowcountry that publish dollars rather than megawatts and lease nothing to anyone, and the largest announced capacity figure belongs to a speculative campus with no tenant, no power before the 2030s and a county moratorium in its path.

It is also the wrong choice if you need to commit to growth on a fixed schedule. The county-level position in this state is moving faster than the projects are, and a promise of future phases is worth what the county process says it is worth. Buy what exists here, and treat expansion as something to re-test each year.

How to actually negotiate in South Carolina

Start by establishing which of the four markets above you are actually in, because the answer changes the utility, the alternatives and the price. Ask which utility serves the building, Dominion, Santee Cooper or a cooperative, and ask for the rate schedule, since there is no retail choice to shop. Ask whether the county the building sits in has a moratorium, a pending ordinance or a rezoning under review, and ask what it does to any expansion right you are being offered. If a proposal cites the state's large announced projects, ask what those change about the room you would occupy, and expect the honest answer to be that they change your electricity bill and nothing else. And if the building is in York County, price it against Charlotte rather than against Columbia, because that is what it competes with.

South Carolina search

Find out what is actually deliverable in South Carolina.

A scout can test all four of this state's markets against your power, density and date, tell you which buildings can really take it, and price them beside Charlotte and Atlanta so the comparison is honest.