San Diego’s Good News of the Year 2025

By San Diego Regional EDC,

Despite the challenges making headlines throughout 2025, Good News of the Week hit your inbox every Friday morning, offering a fresh dose of positivity as you turned the page on yet another week. As we share this year’s top stories in Good News of the Year, we hope you will enjoy this positive look back at 2025, and we look forward to creating and curating more good news with you in 2026.

See what San Diego accomplished in Good News of the Year:

New neighbors and local upgrades

As San Diego became home for many notable companies, reflecting our global reputation in life sciences, tech, and tourism, we also cut the ribbon on highly-anticipated upgrades to the region. Some highlights:

Here’s the deal

San Diego continued to bring in the deals, partnerships, and acquisitions that forged meaningful collaboration—a testament to both the people who live and work here, as well as growing appetites for our innovative companies, programs, and ideas. Among this year’s high-impact partnerships, these topped our list:

A sunny startup incubator

Ranked as a top city for innovation, San Diego’s high profile reflects our region’s diverse skillset and expertise. This year’s top venture funds and IPOs showed continued demand for homegrown tech, life sciences, cybersecurity, and defense technologies:

From classrooms to careers

San Diego’s education systems remained strong, focusing on continued innovation and increasing access between two-year and four-year institutions, as well as industry. See our region’s resilience in education:

Life-changing and life-saving

San Diego companies remained at the forefront of innovation, making breakthroughs in cancer therapies, medical testing, and AI integration—and advancing our region’s competitiveness on a global scale. Key milestones included:

San Diego on a global stage

In 2025, San Diego continued creating the products, research, and ideas that make a global impact across all time zones. We dare you to find a place San Diego innovation hasn’t touched; see our region’s reach for yourself:

Military legacy, innovation future

Contributing an estimated $61.3 billion in annual regional economic impact, San Diego’s military presence in 2025 reinforced what we know is true: The cluster fuels not only our economy, but defense innovation on a larger scale.

A clean, green San Diego

Named among eight A-rated cities in the US for climate action, San Diego’s companies and organizations remained uniquely positioned to drive green decision-making and inspire collaboration locally and across the border. The region’s impact:

Let’s go, San Diego!

The chants we heard from the crowd at Snapdragon Stadium as we welcomed our region’s MLS team created a refreshed wave of pride, resulting in a season of wins that transcended languages and touched hearts across our binational region. See what we rooted for:

Our good news

This year, EDC celebrated our 60th anniversary of building an inclusive economy and driving forward our region’s most impactful industries, talent, and employers with and through you. Our favorite EDC moments:

See OUR YEAR in review