OpenAI has sharply raised its infrastructure spending target to $750 billion through 2030, up 25% from its earlier estimate, according to TechCrunch. The Wall Street Journal first reported the figure. The timing is notable: this ramp-up comes even as OpenAI’s Stargate data center project appears to have stalled.
The first concrete piece of that spending is Project Camellia, a $20 billion data center campus planned for Effingham County, Georgia, roughly northwest of Savannah. The site will cover 1,400 acres and pull at least 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power, the regional utility. To put that in perspective, 3.2 gigawatts is enough electricity to power millions of homes. Power is expected to come online between 2028 and 2032.
OpenAI says it will cover the full cost of infrastructure and electricity, which matters because Georgia passed a rule last year stopping utilities from passing costs onto existing customers when a new user draws more than 100 megawatts. OpenAI will also agree to cut its power draw by up to 1 gigawatt during peak demand periods on the grid. The company is also getting a 50% property tax break from Effingham County for 15 years, according to the Effingham Herald.
What remains unclear is how Project Camellia will actually be powered. TechCrunch asked both OpenAI and Georgia Power for specifics and did not receive a reply. Regulatory filings offer some clues, though not encouraging ones for anyone watching AI’s environmental footprint. In December, Georgia Power received approval to add roughly 9,885 megawatts of new generating capacity. The OpenAI deal accounts for about a third of that total.
Based on Georgia Power’s filings with the state Public Service Commission, the bulk of that new capacity will come from fossil fuels. Here is how the breakdown looks:
- About 5.8 gigawatts from natural gas, either built directly or purchased from third parties
- Around a quarter of that natural gas capacity will come from simple-cycle turbines, which are more polluting than combined-cycle alternatives
- The remainder will come from grid-scale batteries and solar
In total, the new fossil fuel capacity will more than double Georgia Power’s existing natural gas fleet. That is a significant environmental commitment attached to one company’s computing ambitions.
OpenAI has not said when the first GPU will actually go online at the Georgia site. Electricity from Georgia Power is not expected until 2028, but construction could move faster. OpenAI recently hired Brett Mayo to lead data center construction. Mayo previously ran construction at Elon Musk’s xAI, where he oversaw the Colossus data center in Memphis, which was built in record time.
That speed came with baggage. The NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit alleging Colossus has damaged local air quality. The facility has reportedly been running dozens of natural gas turbines without proper permits, with xAI claiming exemption from federal clean air regulations. Whether OpenAI’s Georgia project faces similar scrutiny remains to be seen, but the parallels are hard to ignore as the AI industry’s appetite for power continues to grow with little sign of slowing down.
