Building the infrastructure for the Intelligence Age in Michigan

Today, alongside Governor Gretchen Whitmer, local community and labor leaders, and our partners at Oracle, Related Digital, and Walbridge, we broke ground on The Barn⁠(opens in a new window), a 1GW data center campus in Saline, Michigan.

This project is moving forward because we have worked to build it in partnership with the community and because Governor Whitmer has helped create the conditions for Michigan to lead on projects like this. From the beginning, our goal has been to build infrastructure in a way that does right by the people and communities helping make it possible.

That means making a clear set of commitments.

First, local residents will not bear the cost of the infrastructure required to support this project. The infrastructure and energy needed for The Barn will be paid for by the project, and costs will not be passed on to local ratepayers. To be clear, consumers will be protected from paying more in electricity bills because of this project.

Second, we have to protect local water resources. The project is designed to use a closed-loop cooling system that uses about as much water as a typical office building.

Third, this project should create real work and real opportunity for Michigan workers. In Michigan, that means union construction jobs, skilled trades, and a project being built by the kinds of people and companies that know how to do this work well. The Barn is expected to create more than 2,500 union construction jobs in addition to 450 permanent onsite jobs, 1,500 county-wide jobs and an additional 1,000 indirect jobs.

Fourth, projects like this should invest in the places that host them. That is why OpenAI is teaming up with Related Digital, Oracle, Walbridge, and Blackstone to contribute $10 million dollars toward improvements to the Saline Recreation Center, alongside contributions from Oracle and Related. The City of Saline identified the rec center as a community priority, and this investment supports a project shaped by the community itself. The project also is projected to generate $1 billion in tax revenue over the lease term, including support for local, county, and state schools and services in the local community. 

We believe access to AI tools and training should be part of the opportunity created by this investment. That’s why, as part of our broader commitment to Michigan, OpenAI will make up to $45 million in Codex credits available to more than 400,000 eligible Michigan college students, community college students, and trade school students aged 18 and older during the 2026–2027 academic year. Michigan students can access the program at https://chatgpt.com/features/codex-for-michigan-college-students/⁠(opens in a new window). 

We are also partnering with Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, along with participating community colleges and other state and local partners, on AI literacy and workforce training opportunities focused on practical, workforce-relevant skills.

Together, these efforts are meant to support Governor Whitmer’s broader strategy of helping Michigan students get the education, training, and tools they need for good jobs after graduation.

We know that access to AI tools is a top concern among parents and young people. The concern is driven by the recognition that to be best positioned when it comes to the jobs and economy students will be participating in, they will need AI skills. This program is designed to help prepare these students to be equipped to participate in the AI economy.

These commitments reflect our principle that the communities helping build the infrastructure for advanced AI should share in the opportunities it creates.

That includes labor. Earlier this year, OpenAI announced⁠(opens in a new window) a broader partnership with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) as part of our infrastructure buildout to help ensure that the construction of AI-related infrastructure supports union careers, strengthens union-registered apprenticeship programs, and creates economic opportunity in the communities where this infrastructure is built.  

Projects like this require thousands of skilled tradespeople and the full strength of the construction workforce needed to build at scale. In a state that helped drive American industrialization in the 20th century, that matters. This kind of work can help catalyze a new era of reindustrialization in Michigan, rooted in skilled labor, serious building capacity, and long-term economic strength.

We also recognize that Michigan has a special place in the American story. This is a state that helped build the industrial heart of the country. The next great era of technology is going to be built in America, and Michigan should help build it.

This project is also part of something bigger. At OpenAI, we’re entering a new phase of our work. We started with research. Then we turned that research into products people use every day. Now we’re helping build the infrastructure that will make advanced AI more useful, more reliable, and more available over time. This project is part of our Stargate program, OpenAI’s long-term effort to build the infrastructure needed to make intelligence more accessible, useful, and reliable for people and businesses around the world.

Compute is becoming one of the real strategic advantages in AI because it helps make intelligence better, cheaper, and more reliable over time. More compute supports better models, and better infrastructure helps bring down the cost of delivering advanced AI to more people and businesses. That is why we moved early and why we are investing across the full stack, from systems and networking to the partnerships and physical infrastructure needed to bring capacity online at scale.

That is also why Michigan matters so much to this work. AI depends on more than software. It depends on energy, construction, supply chains, advanced systems, and the skilled people who know how to build and operate them. Michigan has deep engineering talent, a strong building culture, and a long history of making complicated things real. It should play a major role in building what comes next.

When OpenAI launched Stargate in January 2025, we said this work should support American reindustrialization, create jobs, and generate broad economic benefit. Michigan is showing how that can be done.