Building a data centre used to be a quiet affair. Not any more. OpenAI’s plan for a giant new site in Georgia arrives with a charm offensive attached, because the industry has learned that the hard part is no longer the concrete. It is the neighbours.
The company will spend tens of billions of dollars on a complex near Savannah, Bloomberg reported. It has contracted with Georgia Power for 3.2 gigawatts of electricity in Effingham County. A single gigawatt is enough to run about 750,000 homes.
Codenamed Project Camellia, the site would rank among OpenAI’s largest, DataCenterDynamics reported.
The figures are staggered. OpenAI has committed $20bn in the county to qualify for an incentive package due for a vote this week. At the full 3.2GW, the bill would top $30bn, said Sachin Katti, its vice-president of compute strategy.
Several hundred megawatts come online from 2028, the rest by 2032. The company is hunting for partners to help pay for and build it.
