OpenAI unveils self-built 'Project Camellia' data center in Georgia

OpenAI announced Project Camellia, a 3.2-gigawatt data-center campus in Effingham County, Georgia, the first data center the company will design and build itself rather than lease. OpenAI put initial investment at roughly $20 billion, with a compute-strategy executive estimating total cost above $30 billion at full build-out across phases from 2028 to 2032, powered by a Georgia Power contract and a closed-loop cooling system. The self-owned campus complements OpenAI's broader Stargate buildout with Oracle, SoftBank and others, and came alongside the launch of Presence, an enterprise platform that connects AI agents to internal company systems.