OpenAI said Thursday it will stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials when negotiating data center projects, part of a broader set of community commitments the company unveiled days after this week's midterm elections, in which voters in multiple races voiced opposition to data center expansion in their districts.
Going forward, OpenAI says it will use "only narrow protections covering legitimate security information, trade secrets, or proprietary or competitively sensitive information" rather than the sweeping confidentiality agreements that have drawn criticism for keeping residents in the dark about what developers and local governments discuss before a project breaks ground. The move follows a similar pledge from Amazon, which said in October it would no longer use NDAs with government agencies on its own data center deals.
Paying full freight, and a rebrand
OpenAI's additional commitments include covering "the full cost" of the electricity it draws and the infrastructure needed to serve its sites, publishing the number of jobs each project is expected to create, and reporting on actual hiring afterward. Every future data center the company owns and operates — which OpenAI now refers to as a "compute campus" — will carry a "local compact" laying out these commitments and reflecting what it calls local priorities.
The announcement, detailed by The Verge, lands as the company's infrastructure buildout, including a $30 billion campus in Effingham County, Georgia, has become one of the clearest flashpoints in local politics this year. Data center fights over land use, electricity rates and water consumption helped shape several statehouse and municipal races this week, and OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, has described the midterms as a preview of fights to come, calling them "a bit of a movie trailer for what you're going to see in 2028."
Critics remain skeptical that rebranding and new disclosure rules will resolve the underlying tension. Community and environmental groups that have fought data center NDAs for more than a year argue that voluntary commitments, unlike legislation, can be narrowed or dropped once public attention moves on — meaning OpenAI's new compacts are likely to face scrutiny the next time a local fight breaks out. A separate newsroom's tally of how many statehouse and local races turned on data-center fights this cycle suggests OpenAI's new compacts arrive into a political environment that is only getting less forgiving.