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according to a new report from bloomberg, openai has raised the need for the biden administration to build giant data centers, each of which consumes as much electricity as an entire city. this unprecedented expansion is described as necessary to develop more advanced artificial intelligence models and compete with china.

after a recent white house meeting attended by sam altman and other tech leaders, openai shared a document with government officials outlining the economic and national security benefits of building 5 gigawatts of data centers in various states, an analysis the company produced in collaboration with outside experts.

to provide a point of reference, 5 gw is roughly equivalent to the electricity of five nuclear reactors, or enough to power nearly 3 million homes.

openai says investing in these facilities will create tens of thousands of new jobs, boost gdp growth, and ensure the u.s. remains a leader in ai development. however, to achieve this goal, the u.s. needs to develop policies that support the expansion of data center capacity.

altman has been working this year to assemble a global coalition of investors to finance the expensive physical infrastructure needed to support rapid ai development, while also seeking u.s. government support for the project.

an openai spokesperson said that openai is actively working to strengthen the united states' ai infrastructure and believes that this is critical to keeping the united states at the forefront of global innovation, promoting reindustrialization across the country, and allowing the benefits of ai to benefit everyone.

however, the push comes at a time when u.s. power projects are facing delays due to long wait times to connect to the grid, permitting delays, supply chain issues and labor shortages. energy industry executives say powering even a single 5-gigawatt data center is a challenge.

constellation energy corp. ceo joe dominguez said he heard altman was discussing building five to seven data centers of 5 gigawatts each. the document shared with the white house did not provide a specific number.

it is reported that openai aims to focus on a single data center first, but plans to expand the scale later. the total installed nuclear power capacity in the united states is 96 gigawatts.

last week, microsoft, openai's largest investor, reached an agreement with constellation, under which the nuclear energy supplier will restart the closed three mile island nuclear power plant and provide nuclear energy only for microsoft for 20 years.

in june, john ketchum, ceo of clean energy giant nextera energy inc., said the company had received requests from technology companies looking for sites that could support 5 gigawatts of power demand, equivalent to powering the entire city of miami.

such huge electricity demand will require new wind and solar plants, battery storage facilities and connections to the grid, he said.

vc investment in ai startups has reached $64.1 billion so far this year, close to the peak in 2021, but the total annual revenue of ai worldwide is only tens of billions of dollars.