Data Center Registry
Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson)
Ridgeville, Dorchester County, South Carolina · All 53 Google sites · Every Google case on our tracker
Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) is a data center under construction in Ridgeville, South Carolina (Dorchester County), operated by Google. The public record puts it at announced September 2024, 231 acres, a reported $510 million investment. It has documented public support and no documented opposition.
Every line on this page traces to a public source listed at the bottom. Where a figure was looked for and not found, the row says so. A blank is never a zero.
Facility record
Under construction
- Operator
- Facility type
- Data center, AI use confirmed
- Location
- Research Center Drive, Ridgeville, Dorchester County, SC, 29472
- Coordinates
- 33.0960, -80.3239
- Power capacity
- Not established from a public source
- Land
- 231 acres
- Investment
- $510 million
- Announced
- September 2024
- Utility
- Not established from a public source
- Power source
- Solar
- Cooling
- Closed loop
- Water use
- Not established from a public source
- Jobs
- Not established from a public source
- Public subsidy
- Property tax rate reduced to 4% (owner-occupied residential rate) for up to 53 years, Dorchester County, SC, 2024
- Community reception
- Supported
- Source confidence
- Confirmed by multiple independent sources or official documentation
Timeline from the record
Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.
- September 26, 2024ProposedGoogle announced $3.3B SC investment including new Ridgeville campus (Project Dawson) at Pine Hill Business Campus Source: SC Governor's Office
- September 2024Under constructionGroundbreaking at Research Center Drive and Highway 17A, Ridgeville; completion expected within 12 to 18 months of September 2024 Source: Data Center Dynamics
Opposition and litigation at this site
Not that we can document. Local officials or residents have expressed public support for Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) in Ridgeville, Dorchester County, South Carolina, and no opposition, petition, or lawsuit appears in the sources this registry tracks as of September 10, 2026. Dorchester County Council approved 53-year tax incentive.
How the community has taken it
Reception is a sourced signal, not an editorial judgment: supported means local officials or residents have expressed public support and no opposition is documented.
Dorchester County Council approved 53-year tax incentive. Part of Google's broader $9 billion commitment to South Carolina through 2027.
Power and water
Google signed 600 MW solar PPA with EnergyRe covering South Carolina operations
Uses recycled water and closed-loop cooling systems per Google's sustainability commitments
Public money on the record
| Program | Amount | Granted by | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property tax rate reduced to 4% (owner-occupied residential rate) for up to 53 years | Not established | Dorchester County, SC | 2024 |
Notes on the record
Pine Hill Business Campus, Research Center Drive and Highway 17A, Ridgeville. Planned as part of Google's overall $9B SC commitment through 2027 (announced October 2025). MW capacity not disclosed by Google. investmentUsd not broken out by site; $2B is the combined Dorchester County (Ridgeville + St. George) figure. Second Dorchester campus at Winding Woods Commerce Park, St. George not separately tracked here. Coordinates are Ridgeville area centroid. FLAG FOR HUMAN REVIEW, not a confirmed no-change: Google's own South Carolina data-center page states a Dorchester County facility 'opens' in 2024, which is difficult to reconcile with this record's current status of 'under_construction' as of 2026-08-26. Ridgeville and St. George (Winding Woods, the other Dorchester County Google site in this dataset) are BOTH in Dorchester County and the source does not name which one it refers to -- I am not attributing this to one site over the other, and I am NOT asserting a status change, only flagging the discrepancy. It is also plausible this describes an early operational phase of a multi-phase campus while the overall project (this record) legitimately remains 'under_construction'. No capacityMw or jobs data was found for this site despite targeted checks of Santee Cooper (newsroom, generation-projects, board-meetings [JS-rendered, not retrievable], IRP, economic-development pages -- none name Google or this project), SC Governor's newsroom, SC Commerce newsroom, scbiz.com, Post and Courier (429 on every fetch), Live5/WCSC and ABCNews4/WCIV (client-side search, no results surfaced), and SC PSC's docket system (search requires an interactive form the static fetch could not submit). Dorchester County's own government site returned 403 Forbidden. web.archive.org (for the previously-cited datacenterdynamics.com Project Dawson article, and as a fallback for the bot-walled county/PSC sites) returned HTTP 429 rate-limiting on every attempt this run, both via WebFetch and direct curl, so that lane could not be worked at all.
What the record does not establish, and the document that would
In every fight on our tracker the decisive fact came out of a public records request. These are the requests for this site.
- Power capacity in megawatts
- Permanent jobs promised
- Which utility serves it
Which document closes each gap
- Power capacity in megawatts
- The utility's large load service agreement, the interconnection request in the grid operator's queue, or the electrical site plan in the permit file.
- Permanent jobs promised
- The economic development application or incentive agreement, which usually states a job commitment and a clawback.
- Which utility serves it
- The electric service agreement or the utility's filing with the state public utility commission.
Have one of these documents? Send it to us and we will add it to the record with attribution.
Other sites within 30 miles
Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.
- Google Winding Woods Campus · St. George · Google16 mi · Under construction
- Google Berkeley County Data Center (Moncks Corner) · Moncks Corner · Google17 mi · Operating
- DC BLOX Camp Hall Data Center Campus · DC BLOX25 mi · Proposed · 45 MW
Questions people ask about this site
Is there opposition to the Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) in Ridgeville?
Not that we can document. Local officials or residents have expressed public support for Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) in Ridgeville, Dorchester County, South Carolina, and no opposition, petition, or lawsuit appears in the sources this registry tracks as of September 10, 2026. Dorchester County Council approved 53-year tax incentive.
Has anyone filed a lawsuit over the Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson)?
No lawsuit over Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) appears in the record we track as of September 10, 2026. Residents most often reach a lawyer over water supply, well drawdown, noise from cooling plant, property value, or a rezoning approved without the notice the ordinance required. If any of that is happening near this site, it is worth a review whether or not a case has been filed yet.
How much water does Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) use?
No water withdrawal figure for Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson) is on record here. Cooling is recorded as closed_loop, which is the strongest available clue: closed loop and air cooled plant draw far less than evaporative cooling. We leave the number blank rather than estimate one.
Who operates Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson), and how big is it?
Google is the operator on record. We hold 53 sites for that company across the registry. No capacity figure is on record for this site. The site is recorded at 231 acres.
How to cite this page
SueDataCenters.org Data Center Registry, "Google Ridgeville Data Center (Project Dawson)," updated September 10, 2026, https://suedatacenters.org/data-centers/google-ridgeville-sc.
Facility data from Compute Atlas (E. Kubiak), version 1.32.0 (September 7, 2026), licensed CC BY 4.0, record https://www.compute-atlas.com/facilities/google-ridgeville-sc, retrieved September 14, 2026.
Corrections with a public source are welcome at the Compute Atlas record or through our contact page. The whole registry is available as CSV and JSON under CC BY 4.0.
Sources for this record
As compiled and cited by Compute Atlas, with our own reporting appended. Archived links are used where the original has moved.
- 1.Google confirms it is behind Project Dawson data center campus in South Carolina · Data Center Dynamics · retrieved July 6, 2026
- 2.Google grows South Carolina footprint with new Dorchester County operations, SC Governor press release · SC Governor's Office · retrieved July 6, 2026
- 3.Google: Ridgeville, SC Data Center (Project Dawson), site record · Baxtel · retrieved August 26, 2026
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