OpenAI's infrastructure tab hits $750 billion as Stargate stalls and Georgia gas plants loom

OpenAI's Georgia Bet: Gas Plants, Solo Control, and a Stalled Stargate

OpenAI is building a $20 billion data center on 1,400 acres in Effingham County, Georgia, and the electricity to run it will come primarily from new natural gas plants 1. The facility, called Project Camellia, will draw 3.2 gigawatts from Georgia Power, with development beginning in 2028 and completing in 2032 2.

That single project is the first concrete piece of an infrastructure commitment that just grew to $750 billion through 2030, a 25% increase over earlier estimates 1. The headline number will dominate coverage. It is not where the story lives.

The story is the pivot. OpenAI's Stargate data center project, a multi-partner effort, shows signs of stalling 1. Project Camellia replaces the consortium model with a direct deal: OpenAI, one utility, one county. The company committed to covering all infrastructure and electricity costs so existing Georgia ratepayers will not subsidize the build, consistent with a Public Service Commission rule adopted last year that bars utilities from passing costs from large new users onto other customers 1.

And the power source reveals what that solo control actually buys.

Neither OpenAI nor Georgia Power has disclosed how the facility will be powered 1. Regulatory filings fill the silence. In December, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved Georgia Power's request to add 9,885 megawatts of new capacity. OpenAI's project accounts for roughly a third of that. Most of the new generation will come from natural gas: about 5.8 gigawatts of gas-fired plants, roughly a quarter using simple-cycle turbines, the more polluting type. Taken together, the new capacity will more than double Georgia Power's existing natural gas fleet. The remainder comes from grid-scale batteries and solar 1.

OpenAI is, functionally, becoming an energy infrastructure company.

For Effingham County, the deal is substantial. OpenAI is pledging $80 million in community benefits and $71 million in credits for Codex, its agentic coding tool, for eligible Georgia college and technical students 2. The company expects to become the largest taxpayer in the county, projecting hundreds of millions in state and local tax revenue 2. It has also secured a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years from the county 1.

The community package does not resolve the energy calculus.

There is a signal in who OpenAI hired to run construction. Brett Mayo, OpenAI's new data center construction lead, previously oversaw the Colossus data center in Memphis for xAI 1. Colossus went up with unusual speed. It has also allegedly taken a toll on local air quality, according to a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center. The Memphis facility has been operating dozens of natural gas turbines without permits, asserting an exemption from federal clean air rules 1.

Georgia Power says OpenAI will reduce its power draw by up to 1 gigawatt during periods of high grid demand 1, and OpenAI says a closed-loop system will limit water impact 2.

Georgia is already a data center hub, with Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all operating facilities in the state 2. Project Camellia adds a 3.2-gigawatt demand footprint to that mix.

For everyone building, investing in, or using AI, the signal is specific. The conversation about AI infrastructure has fixated on compute: how many chips, what architecture, whose models. OpenAI's first major build reveals the actual constraint. It is not silicon. It is megawatts, and in the American Southeast, the fastest way to generate them right now is combustion.

The bottleneck is no longer compute. It is what you are willing to burn to get it.