Shelby Tauber/REUTERS
- OpenAI’s $500 million Stargate project needs more workers and electricity.
- The AI company recommends that the US add 100 gigawatts in energy capacity every year.
- The spike in energy demand could have consequences for public health and electricity prices.
OpenAI’s project to build more data centers is hungry for more workers and electricity.
In a letter sent by CEO Sam Altman to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy on Monday, OpenAI called its $500 billion Stargate project, which is a chain of AI data centers now under construction in Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin, a “once-in-a-century opportunity” to reindustrialize the US economy.
The company also projects that a $1 trillion investment in AI infrastructure could result in more than 5% in additional GDP growth over three years.
To make the ongoing data center buildout a success, it might take one-fifth of the nation’s existing skilled trade workforce, as well as for the US to add 100 gigawatts of energy production capacity a year.
“The country will need many more electricians, mechanics, metal and ironworkers, carpenters, plumbers, and other construction trade workers than we currently have,” the letter said, adding that OpenAI plans to create new training pipelines through a “Certifications and Jobs Platform” starting in 2026.
In the letter, OpenAI also warned of an “electron gap” between the US and China and wrote that limited domestic electricity generation threatens both America’s AI competitiveness and national security. According to figures cited by OpenAI, while China added 429 gigawatts of new power capacity in 2024, the US only added 51 gigawatts.
The energy bottleneck is becoming an issue for AI companies seeking to build data centers, and so is the pushback. This summer, new AI centers popping up across the country have drawn the ire of local residents for driving up household electricity bills in at least 13 states. As major utilities companies plan multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects to build more energy-generating capacity, there is little regulation to prevent companies from recovering those costs from a utility’s entire customer base.
A Business Insider investigation earlier this year also found that annual public health costs from electricity generation for data centers could reach between $5.7 billion and $9.2 billion. This is mainly because the US relies on highly polluting fossil-fuel-fired sources for at least 60% of its electricity, which has health implications for residents in the region.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
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