OpenAI is building a 1,400 acre data center in the U.S in are area where experts say drinking water has the highest levels of vulnerability.
OpenAI just announced Project Camellia, a massive 3.2-gigawatt AI data center campus in Effingham County, Georgia. Spanning 1,400 acres across four buildings, the $20 billion development marks OpenAI’s first foray into designing and owning its own computing infrastructure rather than leasing capacity.
To secure the immense power required—equivalent to powering roughly two million homes—OpenAI has entered a 25-year agreement with Georgia Power, set to be phased in between 2028 and 2032.
And it is being built in a ‘red zone’ above the Floridan aquifer.
While local officials anticipate the revenue could slash homeowner property taxes by up to 40 percent and create about 1,000 permanent jobs by 2032, some residents have already voiced pushback over corporate tax abatements and environmental impacts. Project Camellia represents a high-stakes blueprint for how the tech industry plans to scale the physical realities of the artificial intelligence boom.
source: Fried, I. (2026). OpenAI plans massive data center campus near Savannah, Georgia. Axios.
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