OpenAI plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on a massive new data center near Savannah, Georgia as part of the ChatGPT maker’s push to keep up with surging demand for artificial intelligence software.
The startup has contracted with Georgia Power Co. and secured 3.2 gigawatts of energy for the data center complex in Effingham County, potentially setting the facility up to rank among OpenAI’s largest to date. Several hundred megawatts are expected to come online starting in 2028, with the rest of development extending through 2032. A single gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 US homes at any given time.
OpenAI committed to spend $20 billion in the county in order to qualify for an incentive package that will be voted on this week, the company said. At the full 3.2-gigawatt size of the project, the cost would probably be more than $30 billion, said Sachin Katti, vice president of compute strategy at OpenAI. The startup is currently looking for partners to help finance and develop the data center, Katti said, and may opt to do some of the operation itself…