OpenAI’s Project Camellia is a planned $20 billion data center campus in Effingham County, Georgia, in the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub near Rincon. Announced July 22, 2026, it would cover roughly 1,400 acres and about 4.4 million square feet and draw a peak electrical load of 3,210 megawatts — 3.2 gigawatts — making it the largest single electricity consumer in Georgia’s history. OpenAI signed a 25-year agreement with Georgia Power to serve the site in phases from 2028 through 2032, agreed to pay the full cost of the serving infrastructure, and agreed to let the utility curtail up to 1,000 megawatts of the facility’s demand at peak times. A state review lists the campus using about 30,000 gallons of water a day through closed-loop cooling. The project is one piece of OpenAI’s plan to spend roughly $750 billion on AI infrastructure through 2030.

The approvals are partly done and under challenge. Georgia Public Service Commission staff reviewed the Georgia Power deal and declined to object, letting it proceed without a public vote, and the Coastal Regional Commission issued a 44-page Development of Regional Impact review on September 16 that flagged wetlands, flood zones, and a state-protected plant on the site. Two lawsuits are now pending. In early September, three county residents sued to void a zoning change (Ordinance 2026-352) that made data centers a by-right industrial use, arguing a required public hearing was skipped. On September 21, the conservation group One Hundred Miles and county residents, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, sued the county Industrial Development Authority, alleging it hid the project behind the name “Project Gateway,” gave short meeting notice, and sold public land to an OpenAI affiliate; the suit values the tax abatement at nearly $900 million. No delays, cancellations, or scale-backs have been reported.