# OpenAI's compute bill hits $750B — and the first shovel lands in Georgia

> OpenAI raised its 2030 infrastructure forecast to $750 billion and, for the first time, will design and build a data center itself: a $20B campus near Savannah called Project Camellia.

_Source: Independent reporting (TechCrunch, Bloomberg, WSJ, AIbase) · 2026-07-23 · 6 min read · Verified against primary sources_

Canonical: https://iyu.app/e/openai-750b-project-camellia

## The 60-second version

OpenAI raised its 2030 compute-spending forecast ~25% to $750B and launched its first self-built data center — a $20B, 1,400-acre, 3.2 GW campus in Georgia called Project Camellia.

**Key points**

- $750B projection is up from ~$600B; the trend keeps rising after Altman's $1.4T musing and Friar's walk-back.
- Project Camellia in Effingham County, GA is the first data center OpenAI designs and builds itself — tenant to landlord.
- ≥3.2 GW from Georgia Power (2028–2032); full-scale cost could top $30B; OpenAI is seeking financing partners.
- OpenAI covers all infrastructure + power cost and will shed up to 1 GW at peak, but >half the new grid supply is gas.
- The spend is a projection: the CFO has privately doubted OpenAI can pay, after a ~$38.5B loss in 2025.

**Verdict.** A genuine strategic shift — OpenAI is building, not just renting — but the financing is a bet against its own revenue, and the power is mostly gas.

## Full explainer


### The number — $750 billion by 2030

On **22 July 2026**, OpenAI told investors it now plans to spend roughly **$750 billion** on computing infrastructure through 2030 — about a **25% jump** from the ~$600 billion it had projected earlier this year. The revision caps a confusing few months: CEO Sam Altman publicly floated a $1.4 trillion figure, CFO Sarah Friar walked it back to ~$600 billion to reassure investors, and now the number has climbed again.

- **$750B** — compute spend through 2030
- **~25%** — increase over the earlier ~$600B
- **$20B** — committed to the first self-built campus
- **3.2 GW** — power for Project Camellia


### The first shovel — Project Camellia — from tenant to landlord

The headline shift isn't the dollar figure — it's the model. Until now OpenAI has mostly **rented** capacity from Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon. Its first project designed and built in-house is **Project Camellia**, a data-center campus in **Effingham County, Georgia**, about 45 minutes from Savannah. OpenAI is moving from tenant to landlord.

> **◆** The $20B is the up-front commitment; at full scale, Bloomberg reports total costs could **exceed $30 billion**. OpenAI is actively seeking partners to help finance and build the campus.

To run construction, OpenAI hired **Brent Mayo**, who previously led the build of xAI's **Colossus** supercomputer campus in Memphis — a signal that OpenAI wants first GPUs online quickly.


### The deal — Land, power, and the grid

- **Location:** Effingham County, GA (~45 min from Savannah)
- **Land:** 1,400 acres, northwest of Savannah
- **Power:** ≥3.2 GW from Georgia Power, phased 2028–2032
- **Demand response:** Cut up to 1 GW at peak (25-year agreement)
- **Community pledge:** $80M in benefits over the project's life
- **Tax break:** 15-year, 50% property-tax abatement (Effingham County)

OpenAI says it will pay the **full cost** of the new infrastructure and the electricity to run it — and under Georgia Public Service Commission rules, those costs can't be passed on to existing ratepayers. On paper, that makes it a careful grid citizen.


### The catch — Gas, and whether the bill gets paid

To feed data centers at this scale, Georgia Power plans to add nearly **9.9 GW** of new generation — and **more than half (~5.8 GW) is slated to be natural gas**, with solar and storage covering the rest. Neither side has disclosed a concrete clean-energy transition plan, raising real concern that the compute build-out deepens fossil-fuel dependence.

> **⚑ Caveat:** The $750B is a **projection, not committed cash**. Reporting says CFO Sarah Friar has privately warned OpenAI may not be able to honor future compute contracts if revenue lags — the company lost about **$38.5B in 2025** on roughly **$13B** of revenue. Treat the spending plan as a bet, not a bank balance.


### Why it matters — The arms race went physical

The $750B still rides on partner deals — 6 GW from Oracle, a **$138B** eight-year AWS arrangement, **$250B** in incremental Azure spend — but Project Camellia shows the frontier labs now compete on **megawatts, land and transformers**, not just models. When one company's data-center plan reshapes a regional power grid and revives gas plants, AI becomes an infrastructure-and-energy story.

> OpenAI is moving from tenant to landlord — betting three-quarters of a trillion dollars that compute is destiny.


## Primary sources

- [AIbase — OpenAI infrastructure budget rises to $750B](https://www.aibase.com/zh/news/29811)
- [TechCrunch — OpenAI's AI spending spree has ballooned to $750B](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/openais-ai-spending-spree-has-ballooned-to-750b/)
- [Yahoo Finance — OpenAI plans $20B data center campus near Savannah](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/openai-plans-20-billion-data-172855976.html)

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