OpenAI's Mega Data Center Proposal Sparks Power Infrastructure Debate at the White House
1min read OpenAI has reportedly put forward an ambitious proposal to the Biden administration, expressing its need to construct large-scale data centers with significant power demands comparable to entire cities. This expansion is deemed essential by OpenAI for the development of advanced AI models and to maintain competitive international positioning.
The concept was introduced by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a recent roundtable at the White House, where industry leaders and government officials convened to address the growing power infrastructure needs of AI projects. Following these discussions, the White House established an interagency AI data center infrastructure task force.
Reports indicate that OpenAI shared a document with government officials outlining the economic and national security benefits of building 5 gigawatt data centers across several U.S. states. Each of these data centers would require an installed capacity equivalent to five nuclear reactors, sufficient to power approximately three million homes.
The document emphasized that investing in these facilities would generate thousands of jobs and boost GDP, while ensuring the US maintains a leading role in AI development. However, the realization of these goals hinges on supportive policy measures for greater data center capacities.
Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation Energy, expressed skepticism about the feasibility of this scale and timeline. He emphasized the unprecedented nature of such endeavors and noted the significant challenge of aligning data centers with adequate power generation facilities promptly.
Dominguez highlighted that effective operation of large data centers requires co-location with power plants due to transmission line limitations, although integrating them into the grid could face significant delays.
In light of this, Dominguez advocated for round-the-clock nuclear power stations as optimal energy sources for such vast data centers, underscoring the imperative of AI success from geopolitical and economic perspectives. Concurrently, energy companies like Nextera Energy have already received inquiries from tech companies seeking facilities to meet similar power demands, likened in scale to powering the city of Miami.