Investor Watch: December 8, 2025

TikTok prepares to construct its first Latin American data center development in Brazil. Hyundai plans a third R&D center in South Korea. Three Lee Li Holdings beverage companies plan for expansion in Ontario.

NEWS DIGEST

Potash mining in Saskatchewan; Eli Lilly expands in Houston; the top five states by value of manufacturing shipments per capita; the largest data center to be built in Mexico; Walmart expands presence in North Carolina; and New Mexico approves a $165 billion data center campus, “Project Jupiter.”

SOUTHEAST U.S.

Managing Editor Kelly Barraza talks to Fujifilm Biotechnologies Chairman Toshi Iida about the company’s latest investment and its place in the company’s global strategy.

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Photo courtesy of Iberdrola Group

On November 21, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey celebrated Avangrid’s announcement that the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line has secured its final permit and will be completed by the end of the year. The project from the U.S. subsidiary of the Iberdrola Group will deliver 1,200 megawatts of baseload hydropower from Québec to New England and will serve as one of New England’s largest sources of baseload power, “strengthening grid reliability and lowering energy costs for consumers,” a release from the governor’s office stated.

The NECEC line will provide Massachusetts with approximately 20% of its overall electricity. “The project will deliver approximately $3 billion in net benefits to Massachusetts electric distribution customers,” said the governor’s office, “including reducing in ratepayer bills by around $50 million each year.” In the May 2025 article “The Ties That Bind,” Site Selection reported on the continuing export of clean Quebecois hydropower to New England despite tariff malaise.

INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Inventions pioneered throughout the Great Lakes region for generations have delivered pivotal chain reactions leading to how we experience everyday life around the globe.

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Looking to escape traffic? Cumberland, Maryland, is your best bet, according to the new INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.
Photo by halbergman: Getty Images

Last week INRIX released its 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard, which identifies congestion and mobility trends in over 940 cities in 36 countries, calling traffic “both a symptom and a challenge of a thriving economy.”

At the global level, Istanbul topped the global list with 118 hours lost to congestion, followed by Chicago with 112 hours and Mexico City with 108 hours. In the United States alone, Chicago’s unfortunate top billing is followed by New York (102 hours in traffic), Philadelphia (101), Los Angeles (87) and Boston (83). INRIX said New York’s number, unlike 88% of the U.S. metro areas that saw an increase, did not rise … perhaps in part because of congestion pricing implemented one year ago (see Site Selection’s March 2025 report “The Commute Matters”).

Cumberland, Maryland; Butte, Montana; and Harlingen, Texas, ranked 1-2-3 in the world for least hours lost to congestion, with 1, 2 and 3 hours, respectively. Butte was the most improved over 2024 (67%), followed by Maribo, Slovenia; Toulon, France, Wheeling, West Virginia; and a tie between Lisieux, France, and Middelburg, Netherlands.

Photo © Nobel Prize Outreach/photo: Anna Svanberg/imagebank.sweden.se

On December 10 the Nobel Prizes will be awarded at Stockholm Concert Hall. Prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace have been awarded to people and organizations every year since 1901, with a prize in economic sciences added in 1968.

After the ceremony, guests sit down for a three-course meal and entertainment at the Nobel Banquet in the Blue Hall in City Hall, which can accommodate up to 1,300. (Last year’s starter course featured goat cheese from Östergötland filled with lovage, served with Swedish beets, honey and quince glaze along with roasted pumpkin seeds.) Then the guests adjourn for music and dancing in the Golden Hall at City Hall, where the walls are covered with more than 18 million glass and gold mosaic pieces in an artwork by Einar Forseth.