OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks at groundbreaking for Saline Township data center

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]First of all, I want to extend my thanks to everyone. Thank you to the governor.

[00:00:04]Thank you to the local community. Most of all, thank you to the workers that are going to create this incredible new site.

[00:00:12]We know how complex the project this is.

[00:00:15]We know what the current attitude towards data centers in the world is. We can come back to this, but we can make this a great example for the future, but we realize and of course thank you to all of our other new partners and old partners up here as well. But this is this is a huge bet and this is something that is not not an easy project, but I always love getting to come to data centers. This is I'm from the Midwest.

[00:00:39]This is the first data center we'll ever build in the Midwest.

[00:00:42]That's especially cool to me. This was like home. And I think it's fitting this is happening in Michigan given all of its history of doing hard things, building complex things that that serve the the country and the world.

[00:00:56]And that really gets to the second point, which is it's easy to throw around these numbers. 1 gigawatt hard to conceptualize that. You know, this many tens of millions of dollars sounds like a big number. Hard to conceptualize that, too.

[00:01:09]Th- This could very well turn into the site where cancer gets cured.

[00:01:13]Um this could turn into the site where hundreds of millions of students around the world learn and get private tutoring. Uh this could turn into the site where millions of small businesses can run their business with AI in the cloud. A gigawatt of AI can do all those things. And it's it's easy to look out at this right now and say, "Okay, you know, looks like another construction site. Looks like a big project. Sounds like a lot of money."

[00:01:37]Um but what this can mean for providing infrastructure for the future, again, in a way that the Midwest and in particular Michigan has powered for a long time is easy to lose sight of. The scale of this what this much AI can do for the world, again, it sounds like oh, it's a big number. We've heard big numbers before. This is a massive campus, massive data center at a time that is going to be extremely important.

[00:02:00]Um so, you know, hopefully someday we'll all read about some incredible thing that the ID has done for society and uh you know, wonder if there'll be a good chance that it happens as this site came online.

[00:02:13]And then the third thing is it is very important to us that this become a model for how data centers and communities can mutually benefit each other. Um so, we've talked about uh not increasing energy prices.

[00:02:26]We've talked about uh those great analogy about water and how you know, this will use less water than a normal office building. Um more than 2,500 union jobs, ongoing 450 operation jobs, the support for the community. Um I I think I understand something about how Midwest works and what it takes to have a project go well, but I hope is this can be a example for the world where the world can benefit incredibly from the site like this and the local community can be thrilled with the decision and say, you know, this is one of our shining examples and we industry and just great all around.

[00:03:05]Um so, we are deeply appreciative.

[00:03:08]Uh we are so excited to get this site up and running. Thank you very much.