OpenAI's Georgia data center secures 3.2GW power deal to 2032

OpenAI's "Project Camellia" data center in Effingham County, Georgia has secured a 3.2-gigawatt power supply deal with Georgia Power running through 2032. OpenAI pledged $80 million to the local community and $71 million in Codex credits for students, addressing local pushback over data centers seen as resource-hungry but job-poor.

Why it matters: A single 3.2GW power deal is on the scale of a nuclear plant's output, underscoring how AI infrastructure buildout is straining grid capacity the same week a report warned data-center electricity use could quadruple by 2035. The community payments also show AI companies increasingly having to buy local goodwill to get megaprojects approved, a pattern likely to repeat as more gigawatt-scale sites are proposed.