OpenAI announced Wednesday that it will spend $750 billion on infrastructure through 2030, about 25% more than it estimated earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The renewed blitz comes as its Stargate data center project appears to have stalled. The first salvo in OpenAI’s spending spree will be a $20 billion data center
OpenAI announced Wednesday that it will spend $750 billion on infrastructure through 2030, about 25% more than it estimated earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The renewed blitz comes as its Stargate data center project appears to have stalled.
The first salvo in OpenAI’s spending spree will be a $20 billion data center campus in Georgia known as Project Camellia. The development will span 1,400 acres northwest of Savannah and will consume at least 3.2 gigawatts of energy from Georgia Power, the region’s utility. Generation capacity is expected to be available between 2028 and 2032.
The artificial intelligence company said it would “pay the full cost of the infrastructure and electrical service costs” of the new data center. The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) adopted a rule last year to prevent utilities from passing on costs associated with new customers consuming more than 100 megawatts.
Georgia Power also said OpenAI will reduce its power consumption by up to 1 gigawatt during periods of high demand on the grid.
OpenAI will receive a 50% property tax reduction over 15 years from Effingham County, according to the Effingham Herald.
Neither OpenAI nor Georgia Power have said how Project Camellia will be powered. TechCrunch asked both companies for details, but did not immediately receive a response.
Regulatory filings could provide some clues. In December, Georgia Power received approval from the PSC to produce an additional 9,885 megawatts. The utility told the PSC it expects to have all contracted capacity by the end of 2026. The deal with OpenAI represents about a third of that figure.
According to documents Georgia Power filed with the PSC, most of the new capacity will come from natural gas. The utility said it will build or buy from third parties about 5.8 gigawatts of natural gas generation capacity, about a quarter of which will come from more polluting simple-cycle turbines. In total, the new fossil fuel capacity will more than double Georgia Power’s natural gas fleet. The remainder will be supplied by grid-scale batteries and solar power.
While electricity from Georgia Power is expected to start flowing in 2028, OpenAI did not provide a timeline for when the first GPU will be powered on. That could happen before 2028, given that OpenAI recently hired Brett Mayo to lead construction of the data center. Mayo previously worked at xAI, where he oversaw the Colossus data center in Memphis.
Colossus was built in record time, but it has allegedly taken a toll on local air quality, according to a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center. The xAI data center has been operating dozens of unauthorized natural gas turbines, claiming an exemption from federal clean air regulations.
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