The OpenAI logo. Image: OpenAI (logo, public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
OpenAI says every AI data-centre campus it owns and runs will pay the full cost of its own electricity, publish how much water and power it uses, and stop asking local officials to sign non-disclosure agreements. The promises are in a National Community Compact the company published on Thursday, alongside a policy blueprint that asks lawmakers to turn the same rules into law for the whole industry.
The timing is hard to miss. On Tuesday, US midterm voters went against data centres in 40 of 41 local ballot measures, and Texas and Georgia elected governors who had called for a on new ones. OpenAI’s post doesn’t mention the election. It calls the compact “the next step” after its January Stargate Community commitments.
What OpenAI is promising #
Each future campus OpenAI owns and operates gets its own local compact, shaped by residents, with a local contact and an annual public report. The shared commitments:
- Power bills: OpenAI will pay “the full cost of the electricity we use” and the extra grid infrastructure needed to serve its sites, in line with the White House’sRatepayer Protection Pledge , which it has signed. Before major spending begins it will put up financial assurances so other customers aren’t left with the bill if a project is “delayed, reduced, or canceled”.
- No gagging orders: it “will not require public officials to sign NDAs as a condition for discussion or negotiation”, bar narrow exceptions such as trade secrets. The blueprint says it voided its NDAs in Effingham County, Georgia, in July. A Senate inquiry found last month thatAmazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft still seek NDAs , sometimes from officials.
- Public numbers: site-level water and electricity use, construction plans, and independent noise studies before a campus opens and every year after.
- Jobs: a published workforce plan for each site, annual reports on hiring and apprenticeships, and local hiring targets “where labor market conditions allow”.
Georgia and Ohio as the template #
In Effingham County, near Savannah, OpenAI it has committed $80 million to local priorities, including a $4.8 million grant for free school meals for all 14,000 students and $2 million for a park. Land-sale money, with a separate state grant, has cut qualifying homeowners’ property tax by about 30% on average, and OpenAI says it will pay at the old, higher rate. Its deal with Georgia Power lets the utility cut up to 1,000 megawatts of supply to the campus when demand peaks.
In Pike County, Ohio, it has committed $40 million, including $6 million for childcare shared with SB Energy. OpenAI expects that campus to create 2,500 long-term jobs paying $80,000 a year on average and 26,000 construction jobs, its own estimate.
“AI is going to be the issue in 2028” #
The compact was trailed before the vote. On November 1, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, told Axios the company would launch a policy push straight after the midterms, which Axios said included community compacts aimed at the bipartisan backlash against data centres and an effort to rebrand them as “AI compute campuses”, the term both documents use throughout. Lehane called the election “a bit of a movie trailer” for the next presidential race:
AI is going to be the issue in 2028.
Chris Lehane, OpenAI chief global affairs officer, to Axios
What it wants from lawmakers #
The Compute Campus Policy Blueprint argues that “voluntary measures alone don’t meet the scale of this moment.” It asks state utility commissions to make big customers pay the extra grid costs they create, codifying the White House pledge. It wants developers barred from requiring NDAs from public officials, mandatory reporting of noise, water, energy and economic impacts, and public tax-incentive deals with measurable commitments and clawbacks if a developer falls short. From Congress, it wants faster grid connections, quicker transmission upgrades and restored clean-electricity tax credits. Democrat Eugene Vindman has already proposed a bill that would make data centres pay for the power they need.
The compact covers only campuses OpenAI owns and operates, and it doesn’t say which current sites that includes. The commitments are voluntary, and OpenAI will check them itself in its annual reports.
Why it matters #
Voters have just shown that data centres can lose elections, and OpenAI is building campuses in Georgia, Ohio and Texas, three of the states that turned against them. Pushing for binding rules lets it show newly elected officials it has signed up already, and would hold rivals to the same standard.
Sources: OpenAI, Setting a new standard for responsible AI infrastructure; OpenAI, National Community Compact (PDF); OpenAI, Compute Campus Policy Blueprint (PDF); Axios, interview with Chris Lehane.