By Lucille Lannigan
Growth and Development Reporter
STATESBORO – The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is working with communities to determine data center development readiness and provide resources for confronting the state’s data center development boom.
A group of southeast Georgia leaders met with the Georgia Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 20 for a Georgia Chamber Data Center 101 meeting in Statesboro. The private meeting was invitation-only and not open to the press. The meeting included Georgia Chamber representatives, including president and CEO Chris Clark and local elected officials from across the region, including a delegation from Effingham County.
The meeting followed the Georgia Chamber Foundation’s Regional Roundtable at the Georgia Southern University Campus in Statesboro. At that meeting, Georgia Chamber officials and education leaders from across the region discussed coastal Georgia workforce, literacy and AI resilience.
Morris Multimedia caught up with Clark to discuss the Chamber’s newest data center and digital infrastructure initiatives.
“Our goal here is to help communities that are interested in building data centers do it responsibly, do it transparently and also how to look out for bad actors,” Clark said.
This is the first meeting the Georgia Chamber has held in coastal Georgia about data centers. Clark said the Chamber hosted one in south Georgia as well and plans to go around the state.
The meetings are a part of the Georgia Chamber’s broader Georgia Digital Infrastructure Alliance, which launched in July, to educate the public and elected officials about the role of the digital economy.
“Everything that we do today is all plugged in and creating and using data everything from bank records to medical records, to gaming and social media platforms,” Clark said. “So, we wanted to bring together both the people that are building this infrastructure, as well as those that are programming it and using it to be able to have a frank conversation to not say that every community needs a data center, but to make sure we all understand the role that they play, the necessity of them as the economy grows.”
The Georgia Chamber also launched its Data Center Ready Community Designation, an economic development program to help local governments proactively prepare for digital infrastructure projects.
Clark said the Chamber’s program first helps communities decide if they’re ready to recruit data center development, looking at the availability of industrial land, transmission capacity and tax base needs, with the help of consultants.
“We’re just trying to help communities be responsible,” he said. “We think this is a unique opportunity from an economic development standpoint, and we do think data centers can play an extremely vital role, particularly in rural communities that maybe don’t have the workforce or that need the property tax support.”