Utz opens a distribution center in Pennsylvania; Amgen establishes a new facility in North Carolina; Hyundai Motor plans to expand offerings in Malaysia.
Meta comes to South Carolina; Linde joins Dow’s clean hydrogen project in Alberta; Eli Lilly doubles down in Indiana; Arzyz Metals invests in Mexico; GM invests in battery cell prototype development in Michigan; Austal grows in Alabama.
Meta’s chosen site in Richland Parish is the latest example of this year’s bountiful crop of data centers.
Rendering courtesy of Meta
If you thought Meta’s $800 million data center in South Carolina above, its new sites in Iowa and Wyoming or its major facility in Arizona were big news, get a load of this: The company last week announced a $10 billion data center will be coming to Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana. It’s the biggest project by far that Site Selection’s Conway Projects Database has tracked in the parish, where the last major project we documented was a $7.5 million Lamb Weston food processing investment in 2020.
Eli Lilly isn’t slowing down either, last week announcing a $3 billion, 750-job expansion at a 100-employee site it recently acquired in Kenosha County. Lilly says it has committed more than $23 billion to construct, expand and acquire manufacturing sites worldwide since 2020. The projects we’ve documented include a new R&D site in Boston, new projects one after another in North Carolina and a $2.5 billion project in Alzey, Germany.
Evidence of how real the green economy can be can be found everywhere from the new MachH2 clean hydrogen hub to the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field.
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan
Photo courtesy of UN Trade and Development
It may prove worth your while as you strategize for global growth to set next to one another on your desktop two new reports released last week. First come revised and projected population estimates for 34 countries from the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Database that highlight, among other trends, high immigration in Canada and what the Bureau calls “unprecedented fertility declines in South Korea.”
Next comes a new Global Trade Update from UN Trade and Development that calls for trade to reach a record $33 trillion in 2024, a $1 trillion increase that represents 3.3% annual growth and is driven by 7% rise in traded services. “Trade remains a cornerstone of sustainable development,” said UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan. “To seize the opportunities in 2025, developing economies need coordinated support to navigate uncertainty, reduce dependencies, and strengthen their links to global markets.”
Inscribed as one of the now 1,223 UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2015, the Forth Bridge, a railway bridge crossing the Forth estuary in Scotland, had the world’s longest spans (541 meters or nearly 1,775 feet) when it opened in 1890. “It remains one of the greatest cantilever trussed bridges and continues to carry passengers and freight,” UNESCO notes. “Its distinctive industrial aesthetic is the result of a forthright and unadorned display of its structural components. Innovative in style, materials and scale, the Forth Bridge marks an important milestone in bridge design and construction during the period when railways came to dominate long-distance land travel.”
