OpenAI unveils Project Camellia, a $20 billion data center in rural Georgia

OpenAI unveiled Project Camellia on July 22, a data center campus in Effingham County, Georgia that it says is the first facility the company is designing and building itself.

The site, about 25 miles from Savannah, is anchored by a power deal: OpenAI has contracted with Georgia Power for 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, delivered in phases from 2028 to 2032. Initial investment is at least $20 billion in private capital, and OpenAI expects total project cost to exceed $30 billion at full scale.

Physically, the campus spans four buildings on about 101 acres inside a 2,600-acre industrial hub. The scale places it among the largest AI compute projects announced to date and signals OpenAI’s move to control its own infrastructure rather than lease capacity from cloud providers.

The company is also trying to head off the local backlash that has met other data centers over power costs and water use. OpenAI says it will pay for the electrical infrastructure so existing ratepayers see no rate increase, use closed-loop cooling to limit water draw, and provide $80 million in community benefits plus up to $71 million in Codex coding-assistant credits for Georgia students. Those commitments are the company’s own, and the ratepayer pledge in particular will be tested as the grid connection is built.

Whether the buildout stays on its 2028-to-2032 schedule, and whether local ratepayers are in fact insulated from the added load, will determine how Project Camellia is judged well beyond OpenAI’s balance sheet.