🏗️OpenAI Drops NDAs With Public Officials For Data Center Projects

Your town's next data center just got more transparent

OpenAI is backing away from non-disclosure agreements with public officials on data center projects. The NDAs were under fire for hiding talks between developers and local government, and voters made their feelings clear in the midterms. Amazon made a similar move in October. Why should you care? Because the infrastructure behind your inference bill is getting political. Every future compute campus OpenAI owns will get a "local compact" spelling out its commitments and local priorities. If you're building on OpenAI's APIs, expect capacity and location decisions to start showing up in public records rather than behind closed doors. The specifics: OpenAI will pay the full cost of the electricity its data centers use, plus the infrastructure needed to serve them. It will also publish the jobs it expects to create and report on local hiring. NDAs stay on the table, but only for legitimate security information, trade secrets, or competitively sensitive material. The catch? Commitments written in a compact are only as good as the enforcement behind them. Watch whether other AI labs follow, because that's when this stops being a PR move.