OpenAI Drops NDAs After Voters Turn on Data Centers

Threat assessment: local opposition is now a direct risk to AI infrastructure plans.

OpenAI said today that it won’t use non-disclosure agreements with public officials on its data center projects, The Verge AI reports. The announcement comes days after midterm voters, according to the outlet, “resoundingly” voiced their opposition to data center expansion. It’s part of a wider set of promises to the communities that host OpenAI’s sites.

The timing tells you most of what you need to know. AI companies need power, land, and permits, and local voters and officials hold real sway over all three.

📋 What OpenAI committed to

As detailed in The Verge AI, the package has four main parts:

1. No NDAs with public officials. OpenAI says it will keep “only narrow protections covering legitimate security information, trade secrets, or proprietary or competitively sensitive information.”
2. Paying for its own power. The company promises to cover “the full cost” of the electricity it uses, plus the “infrastructure needed to serve us.”
3. Public job numbers. OpenAI will publish the jobs it expects to create and report on its hiring.
4. A “local compact” for each site. Every future “compute campus” that OpenAI owns and operates gets one. Each compact will include these commitments and reflect “local priorities,” the company says.

“Compute campus” is OpenAI’s new name for a data center. Axios reported before the election that the label was part of a policy and PR push planned for after the midterms. A new name won’t change how a building draws power, though, so the commitments are what count.

🔍 Why NDAs became the flashpoint

NDAs can keep local officials from discussing a project while it’s being negotiated. By the time residents find out, the deal may already be well along. That’s why these agreements have drawn so much anger.

OpenAI has faced this fight directly. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in August that the company insisted Effingham County, Georgia, officials sign NDAs as it scouted locations for a planned $20 billion campus. Public Citizen says lawmakers in at least ten states have introduced bills to restrict or ban NDAs in data center deals.

🏁 OpenAI isn’t first

This move follows a pattern more than it sets one:

• Microsoft: It launched its “Community-First AI Infrastructure” plan in January, pledging to cover its full electricity costs and pay full local property taxes. It reportedly made its own commitment to end NDAs with local governments in March.
• Amazon: It said in October that it would no longer use NDAs with the government agencies it works with on data center projects, The Verge AI notes. TechCrunch tied the move to the growing backlash, and other reports linked it to letters Rep. Jamie Raskin sent to Amazon, Google, Meta, and Oracle about their NDA practices.

So full-cost electricity and no-NDA pledges are quickly becoming the minimum for a big AI builder. A company that won’t make them now has to explain why.

⚠️ Where to look for gaps

The pledges sound clean, but the fine print will decide what they’re worth. Three things stand out to me:

1. The carve-out is wide. “Proprietary or competitively sensitive” could cover a lot, including site plans and power deals. If that language gets stretched, officials may still end up saying very little.
2. The compacts have limits. As described, they apply to future campuses OpenAI owns and operates. Much of its capacity has been developed with partners such as Oracle and SoftBank under Stargate, and existing sites aren’t mentioned in The Verge AI’s summary.
3. “Full cost” needs a definition. Critics raised the same question about Microsoft’s pledge: who calculates the cost, and who verifies it? Nothing in the reported details points to outside enforcement of OpenAI’s promises.

🎯 What to watch next

• First compact: The first published local compact will show whether this has teeth or is mostly a press release. Look for specific numbers and penalties.
• Competitors: Google, Meta, and Oracle all received Raskin’s letters. Watch whether they make similar pledges.
• State law: Voluntary promises may not stop those NDA bills, especially after this week’s results.
• Project costs: Paying the full cost of power and grid upgrades could raise the price of new capacity. If you buy AI compute or build on these platforms, keep an eye on whether that reaches your bills.

Local permission is becoming as important to AI scaling as chips and power. More details are available in The Verge AI’s original report.