$20B OpenAI Project Camellia in Georgia Needs 11 Low Voltage Systems

OpenAI's $20 billion Project Camellia campus in Effingham County, Georgia requires eleven low voltage systems, creating an estimated $800 million opportunity — and unlike almost every other megaproject on the board, not one package has been awarded.

Project Overview

OpenAI has announced Project Camellia, a 3.2 gigawatt AI infrastructure campus in Effingham County, Georgia, roughly a 30-minute drive from downtown Savannah. Project data shows four buildings covering approximately 101 acres of footprint on a 1,400-acre site inside The Broe Group's 2,600-acre Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub.

The power agreement is the anchor fact. OpenAI has contracted with Georgia Power for approximately 3,200 MW under a 25-year service agreement, delivered in phases between 2028 and 2032. OpenAI has also committed up to 1,000 MW of flexible demand response, letting Georgia Power curtail delivery during peak grid stress, and has agreed to pay the full cost of the electric infrastructure and service the project requires so existing ratepayers are not exposed.

Effingham County agencies put the capital investment at a minimum of $20 billion, with reporting suggesting the figure exceeds $30 billion at full buildout. The campus is projected to open in 2028 with roughly 400 permanent positions and scale to about 1,000 by 2032, alongside thousands of construction jobs that OpenAI has specifically described as including electricians, equipment operators, mechanics, and technicians. Cooling will use a closed-loop water system that OpenAI says avoids diverting water from local communities.

Project	Project Camellia — OpenAI AI Infrastructure Campus
Location	Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub, Effingham County (Rincon), GA
Capital Investment	$20 billion minimum (reported above $30 billion at full buildout)
Scale	4 buildings, ~101 acres of footprint on a 1,400-acre site
Power	3.2 GW phased 2028–2032, plus up to 1,000 MW demand response
Project Type	Hyperscale AI Data Center
Status	Announced — build/operate partner selection in progress
LV Score	10/10

The Part That Matters: Nothing Has Been Awarded

Most megaproject spotlights are an exercise in finding the crack in an already-assembled team. This one is different. OpenAI has stated it is running a competitive process to select the partner that will construct and operate the campus, and that significant work remains on site planning, infrastructure, phasing, design, permitting, financing, and the operating model.

Reviewed primary sources do not name a development or finance partner, a general contractor or EPCM, an architect or engineer of record, an electrical prime, or the holder of any technology package — not fiber and outside plant, not structured cabling, not security, not fire alarm, not building controls, not DAS or networking, not grounding, not commissioning.

For a $20 billion program, that is an unusually clean sheet. The practical consequence for contractors is that positioning happens now, at the relationship and prequalification stage, rather than in a bid room eighteen months from now. When the build-and-operate partner is named, that firm will arrive with a shortlist already forming.

Role	Company	Status
Owner / Operator / Developer	OpenAI	Leading design and development; selecting a build/operate partner
Utility	Georgia Power	~3,200 MW, 25-year service agreement, phased 2028–2032
Industrial Hub Developer	The Broe Group	Owner/developer of the 2,600-acre Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub
Economic Development	Effingham County Development Authority	Announced the investment and job commitments
Utility Regulator	Georgia Public Service Commission	Oversight of the service agreement and demand response terms
General Contractor / EPCM	Not announced	Open
Electrical Prime	Not announced	Open
Low Voltage / Technology Packages	Not announced	Open

Low Voltage Systems Breakdown

Signal tracks eleven low voltage systems on this campus — the full hyperscale stack, spanning data infrastructure, security, life safety, building controls, and commissioning. On a four-building phased program, each of these is bought as a campus-wide package with per-building releases.

System	Category	Scope Description	Complexity
Fiber	Data	Single-mode backbone between and within buildings, MPO/MTP trunk architecture, high-density patching, and the fiber plant that carries GPU cluster east-west traffic. Fusion splicing volume on a campus this size runs into tens of thousands of splices.	Very High
Structured Cabling	Data/Voice	Horizontal and backbone copper, cabinet-level patching, overhead pathway and ladder rack across four data halls plus admin and support space. Repetitive at enormous volume — the definition of a production-labor package.	High
Outside Plant	Data	Campus duct bank, handholes and vaults, inter-building and carrier entrance conduit, diverse-path fiber routes to meeting points. Coordinated with civil and the utility phasing.	High
Access Control	Security	Layered perimeter-to-cage credentialing, mantraps, turnstiles, biometric readers at data hall entries, and cabinet-level control. Hyperscale tenants drive strict audit and compliance requirements.	High
CCTV	Security	Perimeter, yard, entry, corridor, and data hall coverage with long retention windows and analytics. Camera counts on a campus of this scale reach into the thousands.	High
Fire Alarm	Life Safety	Addressable detection with very early warning aspirating smoke detection in data halls, integrated with clean-agent or pre-action suppression release, plus mass notification. Sequenced with the electrical and mechanical shutdown matrix.	Very High
BMS / Controls	Building Automation	Controls for the closed-loop cooling plant, CRAH/CDU-level control, containment monitoring, and the sequences that keep dense AI racks within thermal limits. Tightly coupled to commissioning.	Very High
Networking	Data	Building and campus network infrastructure supporting OT, security, and facility systems — separate from the compute fabric but responsible for everything that keeps the site observable.	High
DAS	Wireless	In-building cellular coverage across large steel-and-concrete structures plus public safety radio coverage, which is code-driven and AHJ-verified.	Medium-High
Grounding & Bonding	Infrastructure	Signal reference and telecom bonding backbone, ground rings, cabinet and pathway bonding to IEEE and BICSI practice. Unforgiving work — errors surface as intermittent faults years later.	High
Commissioning	Validation	Levels 1 through 5 commissioning including integrated systems testing and pull-the-plug scenarios across four phased buildings. On hyperscale work this is a standalone, well-funded scope.	Very High

Estimated Low Voltage Value

Signal does not carry a contracted low voltage figure for Camellia, so the estimate below applies the hyperscale AI data center benchmark to announced capital investment.

Announced Capital Investment	$20,000,000,000 (minimum)
Hyperscale LV Benchmark	approximately 4%
Estimated LV Contract Value	approximately $800 million

Read that number correctly. It is not a bid. It is the estimated total low voltage and technology spend across four buildings over roughly five years of phased delivery, and it will be split into a dozen or more package awards released building by building as power arrives between 2028 and 2032. A realistic single-building, single-system package on this campus is in the tens of millions — still far beyond what most regional integrators self-perform, which is why teaming and joint ventures matter here.

It is also worth being precise about what the 3.2 GW figure is: contracted utility capacity for full buildout, not a disclosed building-level IT critical load. Contractors sizing scope off gigawatts should wait for building-level design releases before extrapolating device counts.

Skills and Certifications Required

Hyperscale AI work has a specific credential stack, and on a first-of-its-kind campus in a market with no existing data center workforce, having it on paper is the differentiator.

System	Key Certifications	Critical Skills
Fiber & Outside Plant	BICSI INSTF, BICSI OSP, FOA CFOT/CFOS, BICSI RCDD	Mass fusion splicing, MPO/MTP polarity management, OTDR and Tier 2 testing, duct bank and vault coordination
Structured Cabling	BICSI RCDD, BICSI DCDC, INSTC, manufacturer certification	High-volume production installation, containment and pathway design, Fluke certification at scale, as-built discipline
Fire Alarm	NICET Fire Alarm Level III+, Georgia state license	VESDA/aspirating detection, clean-agent and pre-action release logic, NFPA 72, AHJ coordination, shutdown matrices
Access Control & CCTV	ASIS PSP, manufacturer certification (Genetec, Lenel, Software House, Axis)	Multi-layer credentialing, mantrap and turnstile integration, large-scale VMS architecture, retention and storage design
BMS / Controls	Tridium Niagara N4, BACnet, manufacturer certification	Cooling plant sequences, containment and thermal monitoring, EPMS integration, high-density rack control
Grounding & Commissioning	BICSI/IEEE bonding practice, ACP/CxA credentials, IEC 62443 for OT security	Telecom bonding backbone, signal reference grids, Level 4-5 integrated systems testing, scripted failure scenarios

There is a workforce story here that contractors should not miss. OpenAI has committed $80 million to an Effingham County community benefits fund covering education, public safety, healthcare, and small business resources, and has pledged up to $71 million in Codex software credits to Georgia colleges, universities, and technical schools. Georgia's technical college system is exactly where low voltage and electrical talent is produced. A contractor that plugs into those programs early — apprenticeships, instructor relationships, equipment donations — is building the crew it will need in 2028 while everyone else is still reading press releases.

Contractors should also confirm Georgia licensing before pursuing this work. Georgia regulates low voltage contracting through the Construction Industry Licensing Board with separate classifications including alarm, telecommunications, and general low voltage.

Market Signal

Georgia is now the most aggressive data center market in the United States, and Camellia marks the moment that market stops being an Atlanta story.

Metro Atlanta's installed IT power is estimated at 1.82 GW in 2026, up from 0.92 GW in 2025, with forecasts reaching 7.68 GW by 2031 — a 26.95% compound annual growth rate. Vacancy ended March at roughly 1%. Annual net absorption hit 705.8 MW in 2024, outpacing Northern Virginia for the first time, and more than 2,100 MW is under construction. Georgia hosts over 200 data center facilities statewide.

Camellia opens a second front. Coastal Georgia has no meaningful data center construction workforce today, no established roster of qualified low voltage integrators with hyperscale references, and no incumbent relationships to displace. Every one of those absences is an opening. The Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub is 2,600 acres and Camellia occupies roughly half of it, which means the site owner has substantial remaining land in a location that just proved it can deliver gigawatt-scale power.

The strategic read: this is a rare chance to enter a hyperscale program at announcement rather than at buyout. The build-and-operate partner has not been chosen, the design team has not been named, and the technology packages do not exist on paper yet. Contractors who want coastal Georgia work in 2028 should be introducing themselves in 2026 — to The Broe Group, to the Effingham County Development Authority, and to every national data center builder currently competing for the partner role.

Find Projects Like This on Signal

LVN Signal tracks thousands of construction projects with low voltage opportunities across the country. Filter by city, system type, and project value to find your next bid.

Browse Signal Projects