OpenAI has approached the White House seeking approval for an ambitious plan to establish 5-gigawatt artificial intelligence data centers in various U.S. cities, Bloomberg reports. CEO Sam Altman is said to have pitched the idea following a recent meeting with the Biden administration focused on AI infrastructure needs.
The document reviewed by Bloomberg likened the energy requirement of these data centers to that of five nuclear reactors, suggesting they would consume more power than an entire city of approximately 3 million homes. OpenAI argues that these data centers are vital for expanding U.S. AI capabilities, protecting national security, and competing with China. The project promises thousands of new jobs and could fortify the U.S. position as a global leader in AI.
However, the substantial energy demand has sparked concerns among energy experts. As Ars Technica highlights, the complexity of powering a single 5-gigawatt data center is daunting due to grid connection delays, permitting issues, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages.
Most likely, such facilities would need to incorporate a combination of new wind and solar farms, battery storage, and grid connections, according to John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy Inc. This complexity has led analysts like Constellation Energy Corp. CEO Joe Dominguez and others to question the feasibility of OpenAI’s plan.
Given these constraints, OpenAI may initially focus on launching a single data center before expanding to additional cities. Recent reports suggest that Microsoft’s 20-year deal with Constellation to re-open the Three Mile Island nuclear plant for AI data centers could provide a precedent in overcoming such challenges, although it offers significantly less energy than OpenAI’s 5-gigawatt requirement.
At a recent roundtable, the Biden administration underscored its commitment to developing large-scale AI data centers and announced a new Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure to streamline policy coordination. In a statement to Bloomberg, OpenAI’s spokesperson emphasized the importance of strengthening U.S. AI infrastructure to maintain global technological leadership and make AI benefits broadly accessible.
With estimates from Goldman Sachs suggesting an estimated 160 percent increase in data center power demand by 2030, the pressure on officials to approve new data center projects and energy sources is only expected to intensify.