OpenAI says it will stop using NDAs with officials at data center campuses it owns and operates

OpenAI said on Thursday, Nov. 5, that it would stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials at future data center campuses it owns and operates, one of several new commitments to the communities where it builds, The Verge reported.

The commitments

• NDAs: OpenAI says it will allow “only narrow protections covering legitimate security information, trade secrets, or proprietary or competitively sensitive information,” in OpenAI’s announcement, which matches its National Community Compact. OpenAI says it voided one NDA in Effingham County, Georgia, in July, per the New York Times as republished by GV Wire.
• Power costs: The company says it will pay “the full cost” of the electricity it uses and the “infrastructure needed to serve us,” with financial assurances so other customers are protected if a project is delayed, reduced or canceled, per IBTimes.
• Jobs: It will publish the jobs it expects each project to create, and set local hiring goals where local labor conditions allow, per OpenAI’s compact, which also promises a published workforce strategy and annual hiring and training reports.
• Local compacts: Every future compute campus that OpenAI owns and operates will have its own locally tailored community compact, reflecting local priorities and accompanied by annual public progress reports, per OpenAI’s compact and the New York Times via GV Wire.
• Local examples: OpenAI’s announcement cites a $4.8 million grant in Effingham County, Georgia, for free school meals for all 14,000 students in the county, and a joint $6 million commitment with SB Energy in Pike County, Ohio, for childcare. It says its agreement with Georgia Power lets the utility cut the power it delivers to the planned Effingham campus by up to 1,000 megawatts during periods of high demand.
• Transparency: OpenAI says it will publish water and power use, construction plans and independent noise studies, per IBTimes and GV Wire.

What the pledge does not cover

The pledge applies to future campuses OpenAI owns and operates. AI Weekly reported that it does not establish equivalent commitments for partner-built campuses, including Oracle-built sites, and the New York Times, via GV Wire, said partners such as Oracle are not covered. The compact provides channels for residents to raise concerns and promises annual public reporting, but we found no formal penalties or dispute-resolution process in its text, which matches AI Weekly’s reporting, citing Decrypt. Separately, OpenAI’s announcement says that when states or local governments offer tax incentives there should be a way to recover benefits if a developer falls short; that is a policy proposal, not a term of the compact. OpenAI’s materials also ask lawmakers and regulators to apply similar rules to all developers, which is a proposal and not a commitment, per Runtimewire.

Why now

The Verge tied OpenAI’s announcement to this week’s midterm elections, and IBTimes, citing Ballotpedia, reported that voters favored limiting data center development in 40 of 41 local ballot measures on Nov. 3. OpenAI’s Chris Lehane told reporters the blueprint had been under development since August, per IBTimes. We read OpenAI’s announcement and its National Community Compact on Nov. 9; where we describe the commitments we cite OpenAI and the outlets that reported them.

Context

Data center projects have drawn scrutiny when developers use NDAs to keep talks with local officials out of public view. Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman wrote in a blog post in early October, “We no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with,” TechCrunch reported. Microsoft said in March it would stop requiring local governments to sign NDAs on data center projects, per Baxtel. OpenAI’s announcement follows similar NDA commitments from Amazon and Microsoft earlier in 2026.

The opposition behind it

A June 2025 report from Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, found data centers accountable for 63% of the price surge in 2025 and 2026, Bisnow reported. These are wholesale capacity-auction prices, not retail rates paid directly by households. Electricity bills are the issue most likely to reach voters, which is why the “full cost” pledge may matter more than the NDA change. That is our reading, not OpenAI’s.

How this builds on earlier pledges

In January, The Register reported that OpenAI wanted every Stargate campus to come with its own community plan, including a commitment not to cause electricity-price increases and to minimize water use. The Register also cited the Wall Street Journal’s report that the Abilene, Texas, site would have only about 100 full-time workers once operating. In April, Epoch AI’s tracker had Abilene operating at 0.3 gigawatts; that figure is seven months old. The new commitments extend that approach to how the company deals with public officials.

What is not known

Based on the reporting available to us, it is not clear how the “local compact” terms will be enforced or audited, whether partners such as Oracle will adopt the same rules, or whether OpenAI will apply the NDA pledge to agreements already signed beyond the Georgia case. We found no on-the-record criticism of the pledge from named officials or advocacy groups.

For more of our AI coverage, see our report on Gemini’s new document editing.