Bleak weather on May 27 wasn’t enough to keep the University of South Carolina Aiken (USCA) from celebrating the near completion of a cybersecurity training facility which has been in the works now for over a decade.
A groundbreaking ceremony originally set to be held outside of the college’s up and coming South Carolina National Guard (SCNG) Cyber Integration Center (CIC) was held indoors on Tuesday morning.
A platform for technological advancement
The 26,000 square foot facility is set to be finished in 2026, and will host cybersecurity related training, education, prototyping and collaboration for SCNG soldiers, USCA students and external partners.
Located just behind the college’s old softball field across from Aiken Scholars Academy, the new facility is expected to support the training of over 400 cyber majors at USCA and more than 100 SCNG cybersecurity and signal soldiers stationed on campus.
The CIC is part of over $145 million invested in cybersecurity in the region, and will be linked with Naval Information Warfare Center’s (NIWC) National Cyber Range in Charleston, as well as Savannah River National Laboratory’s (SRNL) Advanced Technology Proving Ground.
“This project promises to be a platform for human and technological advancement…it also promises to be a platform into the future, nested in our national security priorities,” said Major General Robin Stilwell, Adjutant General of the SCNG.
Features of the CIC will include reconfigurable classrooms, meeting spaces, testing labs, a data center and Regional Security Operations Center (RSOC). The RSOC will be student-run and will provide cybersecurity services to underserved partners such as school districts, nonprofits and rural infrastructure.
‘This world is a dangerous place’
“We have to realize that this world is a dangerous place,” said South Carolina Representative Bill Taylor. “Very scary and very dangerous…Your email is hijacked from time to time, your social media accounts are spoofed by the bad actors, and they’re pretending to be you, to fool your friends with their sinister motives. Let’s not forget the hackers that target the big businesses and steal away millions of private information, including all of yours and mine. Your name, address, social security number, they’re all for sale to the highest bidder.”
Taylor continued, speaking about the current state of technology, nodding to potential nefarious uses of Artificial Intelligence as well as the layered encryption systems that keep people anonymous on the dark web.
“We live in an idyllic community, but Aiken is not immune,” he said, noting that strong cybersecurity is important to protect facilities such as the Savannah River Site and SRNL that could be targeted.
Taylor added that the establishment of the CIC is “absolutely critical to our national security and our personal safety.”
