Building the Trust Industry Why South Carolina Can Lead the Next Economy Building the Trust Industry
By Dennis Fassuliotis, President, South Carolina Emerging Tech Association
Adapted from remarks delivered at ASCENDSC™ 2026 in Charleston, South Carolina.
Event video: Coming soon.
For nearly a decade, we have been discussing the technologies that are reshaping trust—even if we did not yet have a name for the industry they were creating.
Blockchain challenged the institutions that traditionally established and controlled trust.
Bitcoin emerged not simply as another currency, but as a decentralized store of value and a challenge to the idea that trust must always be placed in a government, bank or central authority.
Now artificial intelligence has come of age.
We can analyze much of the world’s accumulated knowledge, recognize patterns beyond ordinary human capacity and create systems that could propel civilization forward in ways we are only beginning to understand.
Some believe we are entering a new Golden Age. Others fear these technologies could displace human beings, overwhelm our institutions and even threaten our existence.
Both possibilities deserve our attention.
At ASCENDSC™ 2026, we began what may be one of the first conversations of its kind: How do we intentionally build the infrastructure for an entirely new industry—the Trust Industry?
And why shouldn’t we build it right here in South Carolina?
A New Question of Sovereignty
South Carolina helped advance one of history’s greatest disruptions in governance: the transfer of authority from the divine right of kings to the power of the people.
Today, we stand at the edge of another great transition.
This time, the question is whether human beings will remain sovereign in a world increasingly governed by data, algorithms and machines.
Will technology serve the individual, or will the individual become subject to the technology?
These are no longer theoretical questions.
Public concern over surveillance is here. The debate over the energy, water, land and environmental effects of massive computing infrastructure is on our doorstep. The prospect of enormous profits is driving one of the largest infrastructure and capital-investment cycles in modern history.
At the same time, we are fighting a battle over truth itself.
Traditional media compete for ratings and clicks. Social media rewards outrage. A narrative can travel around the world before the facts have put on their shoes.
The same technology can liberate us or manipulate us.
The same financial system that promises inclusion can become an instrument of exclusion. Access to our money, identity and ability to participate in the economy can depend upon institutions whose decisions we cannot see, challenge or appeal.
That threatens more than innovation.
It threatens freedom.
The Public Has Begun to Wake Up
People increasingly understand that their data has value. They recognize that their movements can be tracked, their behavior profiled and their choices influenced.
They are asking who owns their digital identity, who profits from their information and who has the power to shut them out.
Communities are also being asked to welcome billion-dollar infrastructure projects without always understanding what will be built, what resources will be required or what public benefit will remain.
That leaves us balancing two legitimate needs.
We need private capital to build the energy and computing infrastructure that will support the next economy.
We also need effective state and local oversight to protect citizens, communities, natural resources and ratepayers.
Over all of it hangs a deep loss of trust—made worse by partisan division, institutional failure and a public debate that too often reduces complicated questions to slogans.
As Dr. W. Scott Stornetta helped frame the challenge at ASCENDSC™: “In a world where seeing is no longer believing, how do you know what to trust?”
That is why we are building the Trust Industry.
The ASCENDSC Framework
The artificial-intelligence economy will not be built by artificial intelligence alone.
It will be built on trust.
Trust in the energy systems that power it.
Trust in the computing infrastructure that operates it.
Trust in the capital that finances it.
Trust in the public policies that govern it.
Beneath those four layers must be two essential foundations: trusted identity and trusted payments.
We are born with an identity. It is not granted to us by a government, corporation or technology platform. Our Creator endowed us with inherent and inalienable rights, and our Constitution was established to protect those rights—not to create them.
That principle must remain true in the digital world.
The ASCENDSC™ framework brings these interdependent elements together:
Energy. Compute. Capital. Policy.
Built upon trusted identity and trusted payments.
Energy determines whether computing infrastructure can be built and who bears its cost.
Compute determines whether South Carolina will participate in the artificial-intelligence economy or simply consume what others create.
Capital determines which ideas become industries and which communities share in the opportunity.
Policy establishes the guardrails, incentives and accountability needed to protect the public while allowing innovation to flourish.
Identity determines whether we remain sovereign individuals or become collections of data controlled by someone else.
Payments determine whether we can participate freely in the economy or only with the permission of an intermediary.
These technologies are converging. Our policies must converge with them.
A South Carolina Model
Emerging technologies are no longer emerging.
Artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital assets, cybersecurity, quantum computing, digital identity and advanced energy infrastructure are becoming one integrated economy.
South Carolina has an opportunity to lead that economy—not by copying California, waiting for Washington or surrendering our future to the largest technology companies.
We can build a South Carolina model grounded in individual liberty, private enterprise, accountable government and measurable public benefit.
A model that welcomes investment but asks what South Carolina receives in return.
A model that protects ratepayers while expanding energy capacity.
A model that brings infrastructure and opportunity to rural communities without stripping away their character.
A model that protects privacy, due process and human agency.
A model in which technology serves people—not the other way around.
From Conversation to Implementation
ASCENDSC™ is not simply a conference. It is a framework for moving South Carolina from conversation to implementation.
The people gathered in Charleston represented the knowledge, experience, capital, technology and public leadership required to begin that work.
Somewhere, it has to begin.
Why not here?
Why not in rural communities the last economy left behind?
Why not in a state grounded in tradition but willing to challenge convention?
I joked at ASCENDSC™ that all of this assumes the frontier models do not kill us first. The laughter carried a serious point: We must build trust into these systems now—while human beings still have something to say about it.
In a world where seeing is no longer believing, trust will become our most valuable infrastructure.
The next economy will not simply be built with artificial intelligence.
It will be built on trust.
Trust can be designed.
Trust can be verified.
Trust can be governed.
But most importantly, trust must be earned.
Together, we can build the Trust Industry.
And we can build it right here in South Carolina.
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