As the effects of the pandemic faded further into the background this year, the U.S., South Carolina and Charleston economies faced a onslaught of fresh challenges in 2025.
Among them: whipsaw tariffs that drove up the cost of many imports, fears of a recession that never materialized, the 43-day federal government shutdown and persistently sticky inflation that kept prices elevated for certain food staples and other goods.
Against that backdrop, it was a year to expect the unexpected. The economy once again proved to be resilient this past year and full of surprises.
Some of the top local highlights:
Google as become an AI “hyperscaler” based on its spending plans for South Carolina and other states.
AI amps up
The technology industry’s latest arms race spilled over into South Carolina in a big way in 2025, when Google announced it will invest a staggering $9 billion in the Palmetto State over two years to ensure it has enough computing infrastructure to handle demand from the artificial-intelligence stampede.
The search engine giant and Alphabet Inc. subsidiary is among the big “hyperscalers” that are spending heavily to serve the rapidly growing AI industry.
Elsewhere around South Carolina, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms is constructing an $800 million data center near Aiken for similar reasons. And more recently, another developer floated plans to build a huge AI-driven server farm in rural Colleton County, to the chagrin of many local residents.
Santee Cooper is negotiating to sell the two unfinished reactors (above) at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in Fairfield County to Brookfield Asset Management.
Nuke it
It was unthinkable a few years ago, but the state’s biggest-ever business failure could give South Carolina a front-row seat in the nation’s nuclear energy reboot.
Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper announced in February it would try to sell the two unfinished reactors at the V.C. Summer plant that were abandoned in 2017 after years of steep cost overruns and construction delays.
Brookfield Asset Management wants to buy them. It’s offering $2.7 billion for the formerly left-for-dead reactors, which it hopes to complete in 2032 if the firm decides to go forward with the deal.
The goal is to reach a “final investment decision” with the global investment giant by late 2027, according to Santee Cooper, whish plans to use proceeds from the proposed sale to reduce the $3 billion in debt that its electric customers are paying off from the failed project.
Volvo Cars announced in July it will start making its top-selling XC60 in Berkeley County.
Shifting gears
Volvo Cars identified the next vehicle it will build at its underutilized South Carolina plant, a move designed to accelerate its U.S. sales while reducing its exposure to new tariffs on imported cars.
The automaker said in July it will add its top-selling Swedish-built XC60 midsize SUV to the assembly line at its only American factory. Production of two versions of the electric-gas hybrid is expected to begin by late 2026.
The XC60 will be built along with the battery-powered, sluggish-selling EX90 and an all-electric vehicle that the Berkeley County plant makes for Sweden’s Polestar brand.
Volvo later announced that it would double its workforce in Ridgeville.
Micah Mallace returned to the State Ports Authority as its new president and CEO in October.
Port shakeup
In a move few saw coming, the top executive at the State Ports Authority abruptly stepped aside after about three years in the job.
Barbara Melvin resigned from the CEO post in August, about two days after a surprise closed-door meeting with the maritime agency’s board of directors.
The corner office didn’t sit empty too long. Melvin was replaced in mid-October by Micah Mallace, a former SPA sales chief who left in 2021 for the private sector.
His first big decision as CEO, aside from stressing that growth would be his primary focus, was to postpone indefinitely the early 2026 opening of a delay-riddled $690 million cargo railyard on the old Navy base.
Boeing Co. started construction this fall on a second assembly line for at its 787 Dreamliner plant (above) in North Charleston.
Boeing bounceback
After limping through the pandemic, Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner program snapped back to life under a new executive regime in 2025.
Customers ordered 351 of the North Charleston-built widebodies from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30, the second-most on record and 18 shy of the all-time peak set in 2007.
To meet the growing 787 workload, Boeing broke ground last month on a $1 billion expansion of its Lowcountry manufacturing campus that will require the company to bring on at least 1,000 new production employees.
Passengers disembark Jan. 4 after the Carnival Sunshine arrived at its home berth at Union Pier Terminal for the final time.
Last call
After completing nearly 1,000 voyages carrying more than 2.5 million passengers, Carnival Cruise Line’s nearly 15-year run at Union Pier Terminal in Charleston came to an end.
The company’s Sunshine returned to its berth in the Holy City with a boatload of vacationers for the final time on Jan. 4 before sailing off to its new full-time home in Norfolk, Va.
The ship is the last pleasure vessel that will be based year-round at Union Pier, which the State Ports Authority plans to sell to local investor Ben Navarro in 2027. The $250 million real estate deal includes the cruise ship passenger building.
The maritime agency announced it wouldn’t extend its contract with Carnival when it put Union Pier on the market several years ago. The Miami-based line had been offering year-round cruises between the lower peninsula and the Bahamas since 2010.
