OpenAI to Build $20 Billion Data Center in Rincon, Georgia

OpenAI has announced a new data center complex in Effingham County, Georgia, just outside Rincon. The $20 billion project, code-named Project Camellia, is set to be funded entirely with private capital and could become one of the largest economic investments in the history of Georgia's coast.

The complex will be built on the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, a 2,600-acre industrial site just outside Rincon. The data center buildings themselves will occupy about 101 acres of that land. It's a location with strong access to the power grid and transportation infrastructure, which is critical for this kind of investment.

Scale of the investment

According to Effingham County officials, this is one of the largest private economic investments in the history of Georgia's coast. The four data center buildings are expected to come online in 2028, with the workforce reaching 1,000 by 2032. The first 400 jobs are expected to offer six-figure annual salaries, on top of thousands of construction jobs, with priority given to local contractors.

OpenAI has been negotiating the terms of the investment with county officials for months. In exchange for a 50 percent tax break spread over 15 years, the company has committed to years of investment in local infrastructure and says that, despite the break, it will still become the region's largest taxpayer, something county officials link to a potential cut in property tax rates for residents of up to 40 percent.

Power and water

Georgia Power has signed a 25-year agreement with OpenAI to supply 3.2 gigawatts of power, delivered in phases from 2028 to 2032. The company has also committed to cutting power draw by as much as 1 gigawatt during peak hours to ease pressure on the grid at the most critical moments, and to fund the necessary expansion of energy infrastructure out of its own pocket.

Server cooling will rely on a closed-loop water system, which the company and local officials say means water use comparable to an office building employing a similar number of people. That detail matters, since the site sits in what's known as a "red zone" south of GA Route 119, where water access is restricted.

We're early in this process and we want to do it the right way, in the best interest of the local community - Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer

Benefits and local concerns

OpenAI has pledged $80 million in support for local priorities: schools, public safety, health care, vocational training, housing and veterans. The company also says it will commission independent annual audits of how these commitments are carried out. Separately, across the state of Georgia, college, university and technical school students are set to receive up to $71 million in credits for Codex, OpenAI's coding assistant, worth $100 per eligible ChatGPT account.

Companies like OpenAI are making real commitments when it comes to responsible operation and growth - Aaron Mitchell, Georgia Power vice president

Not everywhere in the US do such projects get a warm welcome. According to a poll cited in local media, only 24 percent of Americans support building a data center within five kilometers of their home, a sign that opposition to these investments is growing right alongside their number and scale nationwide.

The race for AI infrastructure

Project Camellia is another piece of OpenAI's broader strategy, which for months has been signing multibillion-dollar contracts for computing power and energy across the United States to keep up with growing demand for training and running ever-larger models. The scale of these investments, tens of billions of dollars for a single complex, has become the norm among industry leaders over the past year, not the exception.

For Polish readers, this news is above all a striking illustration of scale. A single US infrastructure investment by OpenAI, worth $20 billion, exceeds the budgets of Europe's and Poland's entire artificial intelligence development plans, which are counted in single-digit billions of euros. It's another data point in the debate over European technological sovereignty and the pace of building the continent's own computing infrastructure.

The next step will be formal approval of the project by local planning authorities and the start of construction, whose timeline is expected to be tied to the phased delivery of power by Georgia Power. Effingham County residents will be able to track the company's compliance with its commitments through the promised annual audits.