If you care where the next wave of U.S. AI compute actually gets built, OpenAI's Project Camellia update is the local-impact version of the story: Effingham County, Georgia, a multi-gigawatt Georgia Power contract, and a community process meant to lock commitments in writing.
This is the status card for people tracking grid load, ratepayer risk, and whether the campus is real construction or still a slide deck.
The campus and the power deal
OpenAI describes Project Camellia as a long-term data-center project it is designing and developing in Effingham County, Georgia. To feed it, OpenAI says it is contracting with Georgia Power for 3.2 gigawatts, delivered in phases between 2028 and 2032.
OpenAI's own framing stresses two ratepayer points that matter more than the headline megawatts:
The project is intended to be entirely privately funded
OpenAI says it will pay the full cost of the electrical infrastructure and electric-service costs required to serve the campus, and that under Georgia Public Service Commission rules those costs cannot be passed to existing ratepayers
The company also positions Camellia among early data-center designs that can flex demand during high-load periods so Georgia Power can reduce delivery when the grid is stressed. Treat that as a design claim until interconnection and tariff details are public.
Jobs, taxes, and OpenAI's pitch
OpenAI is selling Camellia as domestic industrial buildout, not just rack space:
Building this infrastructure in the United States strengthens domestic industry, creates good jobs, and helps ensure American communities participate in the economic opportunity created by AI.
That line is from OpenAI's Effingham announcement. Local officials and OpenAI have also discussed a large privately funded campus footprint near Rincon inside an existing industrial hub. Exact acreage, building counts, and full lifetime capital (figures circulating from $20 billion upward) should be verified against the forthcoming Community Compact and county filings rather than treated as locked engineering specs.
