{"slug": "openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b", "title": "OpenAI’s AI spending spree has ballooned to $750B", "summary": "OpenAI announced Wednesday it will spend $750 billion on infrastructure through 2030, 25% more than earlier estimates, with the first project being a $20 billion data center campus in Georgia known as Project Camellia. The 1,400-acre site northwest of Savannah will draw at least 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power, with capacity expected between 2028 and 2032, and OpenAI will pay full infrastructure and electric-service costs. The company is receiving a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years from Effingham County, and regulatory filings indicate most new capacity will come from natural gas, more than doubling Georgia Power's natural gas fleet.", "body_md": "OpenAI announced Wednesday that it will spend $750 billion on infrastructure through 2030, some 25% more than it estimated earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal [reported](https://www.wsj.com/tech/openais-planned-cloud-spending-hits-750-billion-as-computing-efforts-ramp-up-6ac3f58a) The renewed blitz comes as its Stargate data center project [appears to have stalled](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/12/openais-stargate-project-reportedly-struggling-to-get-off-the-ground-thanks-to-tariffs/).\n\nThe first salvo in OpenAI’s spending spree will be a $20 billion data center campus in Georgia known as Project Camellia. The development will span 1,400 acres northwest of Savannah and will draw at least 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power, the region’s utility. The generating capacity is expected to become available between 2028 and 2032.\n\nThe AI company said it would “pay the full cost of the infrastructure and electric-service costs” for the new data center. The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) [adopted a rule](https://psc.ga.gov/site/assets/files/8617/media_advisory_data_centers_rule_1-23-2025.pdf) last year to prevent utilities from passing on costs associated with new users drawing more than 100 megawatts.\n\nGeorgia Power also said OpenAI will reduce its power draw by up to 1 gigawatt during periods of high demand on the grid.\n\nOpenAI is receiving a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years from Effingham County, [according](https://www.effinghamherald.net/local/openai-plans-20b-data-center-in-effingham-county-rincon-georgia/) to the Effingham Herald.\n\nNeither OpenAI nor Georgia Power has said how Project Camellia will be powered. TechCrunch asked both companies for specifics, but did not immediately receive a reply.\n\nRegulatory filings might provide some clues. In December, Georgia Power received [approval](https://psc.ga.gov/site/assets/files/9176/media_advisory_dec_19_decision.pdf) from the PSC to produce an additional 9,885 megawatts. The utility [told the PSC](https://psc.ga.gov/site/assets/files/9458/spring_2026-1.pdf) it expects to have all the capacity contracted by the end of 2026. The OpenAI deal accounts for about a third of that.\n\nBased on [documents](https://psc.ga.gov/search/facts-document/?documentId=224953) Georgia Power filed with the PSC, most of the new capacity will come from natural gas. The utility said it will build or buy from third parties about 5.8 gigawatts of natural gas generating capacity, about a quarter of which will be from more polluting simple-cycle turbines. Altogether, the new fossil fuel capacity will more than double [Georgia Power’s natural gas fleet](https://www.georgiapower.com/about/energy/plants.html). The remainder will be supplied by grid-scale batteries and solar.\n\nWhile electricity from Georgia Power is expected to start flowing in 2028, OpenAI did not give a timeline for when the first GPU will be turned on. That could happen sooner than 2028 given that OpenAI recently hired Brett Mayo to lead data center construction. Mayo previously worked at xAI, where he oversaw the Colossus data center in Memphis.\n\nColossus was built in record time, but it has allegedly taken its toll on local air quality, according to a [lawsuit](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/xai-is-facing-a-lawsuit-for-operating-over-400-mw-of-gas-turbines-without-permits/) filed by the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center. The xAI data center has been running [dozens of unpermitted natural gas turbines](https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/13/musks-xai-is-running-nearly-50-gas-turbines-unchecked-at-its-mississippi-data-center/), claiming exemption from federal clean air regulations.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b", "canonical_source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b/", "published_at": "2026-07-22 16:13:30+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-22 16:23:37.074268+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-chips", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["OpenAI", "Georgia Power", "Project Camellia", "Georgia Public Service Commission", "Effingham County", "Brett Mayo", "xAI", "Colossus data center"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b.jsonld"}}