South Carolina Needs an Honest Conversation About Our Digital Future

By Dennis Fassuliotis, President

Thousands of South Carolinians are already debating artificial intelligence.

They’re discussing it in legislative hearings, county council meetings, business organizations, classrooms, churches, on social media, and around kitchen tables. They’re asking thoughtful questions about data centers, energy, water, privacy, digital assets, jobs, and what all of this means for the future of our state.

That conversation is healthy, but it is also incomplete, because the real debate is no longer about artificial intelligence.

It is about South Carolina’s digital future.

Recognizing the importance of that conversation, the South Carolina Emerging Tech Association recently launched a statewide Public Listening Initiative. Questions shared across more than forty South Carolina community groups generated tens of thousands of views and hundreds of thoughtful comments from citizens representing every corner of our state.

While opinions differed, one conclusion emerged with remarkable consistency. South Carolinians are ready to have this conversation.

They want facts instead of fear. They want transparency instead of slogans. They want leaders willing to discuss both the opportunities and the legitimate risks of emerging technologies before decisions are made—not after.

Those conversations are already shaping public policy.

This year, South Carolina enacted S.163, establishing an important legal framework recognizing the growing role of digital assets in our economy. The General Assembly also adopted a budget proviso requiring public reporting of water consumption by large data centers, reflecting the public’s desire for greater transparency as new digital infrastructure is developed.

These are thoughtful, incremental steps, but they also acknowledge an important reality. The future is arriving faster than most of us expected.

In fact, it’s already arrived.

Recent comments by Senator Tim Scott about artificial intelligence reinforce a conversation already underway across South Carolina. Whether discussing education, healthcare, manufacturing, workforce development, cybersecurity, or economic competitiveness, AI has become impossible to ignore.

Artificial intelligence is only the visible part of a much larger transformation. The AI economy is not simply another sector of our economy. It is rapidly becoming the operating platform upon which every sector increasingly depends.

Manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, education, energy, transportation, finance, and government are all being reshaped at the same time. AI-driven systems are becoming embedded across every layer of production, services, and public administration.

Modern energy infrastructure, advanced computing, communications networks, digital identity, cybersecurity, trusted digital assets, robotics, and intelligent automation are rapidly becoming one interconnected ecosystem. Decisions made in one area increasingly affect every other.

That is why South Carolina needs an honest conversation about its digital future. However, it must begin with the one distinction that gets lost in today’s debate.

A data center no more democratizes intelligence than a power plant democratizes electricity. Like power plants, data centers are foundational infrastructure. A power plant generates electricity. A data center generates compute—the essential resource that enables reasoning, prediction, communication, and intelligent applications across every sector of the economy. Their value lies not in what they produce directly, but in everything they make possible.

Artificial intelligence democratizes intelligence by making knowledge and expertise accessible to ordinary people in ways that were previously unimaginable.

Consider a properly licensed carpenter who completes a job but isn’t paid. Not long ago, his choices were limited. Hire an attorney or walk away.

Today, artificial intelligence can explain mechanics liens in plain English, identify the proper forms, outline the filing process, and prepare him for a productive conversation with an attorney if one is still needed.

The attorney remains valuable. The expertise remains valuable. What changes is access. Artificial intelligence doesn’t replace expertise. It makes expertise more accessible.

That simple example illustrates why this conversation matters far beyond technology companies or government agencies. For most of human history, expertise largely belonged to those who could afford it. Artificial intelligence changes this equation.

It gives entrepreneurs access to sophisticated market analysis once available only to large corporations. It helps small manufacturers optimize production. It allows farmers to analyze weather patterns and crop conditions with tools that once required teams of specialists. It enables students, caregivers, veterans, and small business owners to ask better questions and make better-informed decisions.

That opportunity is extraordinary. It also raises entirely legitimate questions.

Who builds these systems? Who controls them? How transparent are they? How is our data protected?

Can they be independently audited? How do we ensure these technologies expand opportunity rather than concentrate power?

Those are not technology questions. They are governance questions.

In the age of artificial intelligence, trust increasingly depends on verification. Public policy should encourage AI systems that can be independently evaluated, tested, and verified, not simply accepted on faith. The question is no longer whether AI will shape our future, but whether citizens can have confidence in the systems increasingly shaping their lives.

History offers an important lesson.

America became the world’s technology leader because it consistently embraced openness. The internet, Linux, open networking standards, and permissionless innovation created an environment where entrepreneurs could build without asking permission. Innovation spread because ideas competed on merit rather than access.

Open systems created larger ecosystems. South Carolina has already entered this conversation. In 2025, SCETA sponsored Senate Resolution 225, recognizing the importance of AI systems that can be independently evaluated, tested, and verified. Whether through open-source models, open-weight models, or other approaches that provide meaningful transparency, the public policy objective remains the same: building systems that earn trust through verification rather than assumption. In an AI-driven economy, transparency is not simply a technical preference, it is a safeguard for liberty.

We’ve seen this pattern play out over the last thirty years since the birth of the internet. Larger ecosystems drove more innovation. More innovation created greater prosperity. That same dynamic is the accelerant driving the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence.

Around the world, governments and private industry are racing to shape the technologies that will define the next generation of economic growth. The country whose platforms become the world’s preferred standards will export more than software. It will export its technical standards, its governance models, and ultimately its values.

America will not lead that future by becoming less open than its competitors, nor should South Carolina. But openness alone is not enough. Innovation without trust eventually creates resistance.

Trust without innovation eventually creates stagnation.

Our challenge is to build both.

That brings us to the larger question facing every democratic society today. The same technologies capable of expanding opportunity can also concentrate power. Every smartphone creates a continuous stream of data. That stream reveals where we go, what we buy, who we communicate with, what captures our attention, and increasingly, how algorithms understand us.

Around the world, authoritarian governments are already using artificial intelligence, biometric identification, predictive analytics, and pervasive surveillance to monitor populations, influence behavior, and centralize decision-making at a scale never before possible.

This is not science fiction. It is a governance model already being deployed. The defining question for democratic societies is no longer whether these technologies will exist. They already do.

The question is this: Will our elected officials govern in ways that preserve liberty, transparency, and individual rights or allow efficiency alone to become the standard by which they are judged?

South Carolina has faced transformational infrastructure decisions before. Roads, railroads, ports, Electrification, interstate highways, and most recently, broadband.

Each faced skepticism and each required difficult public conversations. Yet, ultimately these projects became foundational to our economic growth and quality of life.

Today we celebrate Lake Thurmond as one of South Carolina’s greatest recreational and economic assets. Far fewer remember the difficult decisions that accompanied its creation, including the disappearance of the town of Petersburg beneath its waters.

The lesson is not that every infrastructure project deserves approval. Nor is it that progress should come without consequences. The lesson is that every generation must carefully weigh both the cost of change and the cost of standing still.

South Carolina prospered because previous generations chose to adapt. Textiles gave way to automobiles. Automobiles were joined by aerospace, advanced manufacturing, logistics, life sciences, and global commerce.

Another transition is already underway. Tomorrow’s products will increasingly be designed, simulated, optimized, tested, and secured in advanced computing environments before a single physical component is manufactured.

The digital factory increasingly comes before the physical factory. Just as the Industrial Revolution was powered by electricity, the digital economy will be powered by compute and secured by trust.

Over the past two decades, South Carolina has invested billions to expand broadband and fiber infrastructure across the state, with the goal of connecting every community to the modern economy.

But broadband was never the destination. It is the conduit connecting South Carolinians to the next generation of the digital economy. Artificial intelligence, trusted digital identity, secure digital payments, advanced computing, and resilient digital infrastructure represent the next layer built upon that investment. If broadband connected people to information, this next generation of infrastructure will connect people to intelligence.

That does not mean every data center should be approved. Nor does it mean every proposal should be rejected. Each project deserves to be evaluated on its merits.

Communities deserve transparency. Citizens deserve meaningful engagement. Property owners deserve respect. Natural resources deserve stewardship. Ratepayers deserve protection.

Innovation deserves a predictable regulatory environment.

Those objectives are not in conflict. They are the foundation of responsible governance. I call this framework Freedom Tech. It is built on a simple philosophy that technologies shaping our economy and our liberties should be transparent where appropriate, independently verifiable whenever possible, accountable, and secure enough to protect both individual liberty and legitimate national interests.

Freedom Tech is not about replacing government with technology. It is about using technology to strengthen liberty by reinforcing the constitutional principles upon which our Republic was built.

Transparency instead of secrecy. Privacy instead of unnecessary surveillance. Decentralization instead of unnecessary concentration of power. Citizen empowerment instead of institutional dependence.

Our constitutional rights should not become weaker simply because technology becomes more powerful. If anything, technology should make those rights easier to verify, enforce, and protect. Properly designed digital systems can strengthen due process, improve accountability, and make government more transparent rather than less.

Imagine digital government systems where due process, statutory requirements, transparency, audit trails, and accountability become mandatory checkpoints before government action can proceed.

Technology should reinforce constitutional protections, not circumvent them. That is how trust is built. Not through social credit scores or Orwellian controls.

Trust has always been one of society’s most valuable assets. Unlike roads, bridges, or factories, it cannot be seen or touched. Yet in a digital economy, trust itself becomes infrastructure.

Verified identities. Authenticated transactions. Immutable records. Auditable AI systems. Together they create the confidence upon which commerce, government, and civil society increasingly depend.

What is changing is our ability to strengthen that trust through immutable records, verifiable credentials, transparent audit trails, cryptographic verification, and responsible applications of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence democratizes intelligence.

Blockchain democratizes trust.

Verifiable AI systems connect the two.

Together, they democratize opportunity.

South Carolina has an opportunity to become more than a participant in the AI economy. We can become a national leader in building trusted digital infrastructure that encourages innovation while protecting individual liberty.

Every generation leaves behind infrastructure that shapes those who follow. Our grandparents built the roads. They built the ports. They built the dams. Our parents and our generation expanded broadband to connect South Carolina to the digital economy.

This current generation has inherited another and different responsibility. We must build the trust infrastructure that allows intelligence, freedom, and economic opportunity to flourish together.

The question before us is no longer whether South Carolina will participate in the digital economy. We already are. The real question is whether we will help define the principles upon which this economy is built.

Will we become a state that simply adopts new technology, or one that demonstrates how innovation, transparency, constitutional governance, and public trust can advance together?

That conversation has already begun. Thousands of South Carolinians have already joined it.

Now it is time for citizens, business leaders, educators, and policymakers to ensure that South Carolina’s digital future is guided not by fear or politics, but by transparency, innovation, constitutional principles, and trust.

South Carolina has never been defined by the challenges it faced. It has been defined by the courage to meet them.

The digital future is upon us whether we prepare for it or not.

I believe we should build it here.

And I believe we should build it on trust.

Dennis Fassuliotis, president of the South Carolina Emerging Technology Association, works with policymakers and industry leaders on digital asset, artificial intelligence, and innovation-economy policy focused on transparency and economic development.