OpenAI promises that it will not sign any confidentiality agreements when building data centers, and residents will not be required to share the costs associated with electricity usage.

With the mid-term elections over, data centers have become one of the hottest topics in American local politics. OpenAI quickly expressed its position this week.

It introduced a framework called the National Community Compact, whose core commitments include the following points:

When discussing data center projects with local authorities, there is no need to use confidentiality agreements anymore; the electricity required for these projects should not be paid for by local residents; clear data should be provided regarding the impact of noise, water consumption, and energy consumption on the community; during peak electricity demand periods, efforts should be made to reduce load, and if necessary, excess power should be fed back into the grid; if local labor conditions permit, local recruitment should be a priority. Progress in these initiatives should be reported publicly.

The first point directly targets the most critical issues. In the past, for many data center projects, confidentiality agreements would be signed first, and only after everything was finalized would the local residents be informed. By the time the public became aware of the plans, the necessary approvals had already been obtained. The opposition in many areas stems precisely from this sense of being kept in the dark.

OpenAI also put forward an even more ambitious proposal: this framework should be incorporated into the laws governing the expansion of artificial intelligence applications.

This move was quite shrewd. By setting one’s own standards first and then pushing them to become law, one effectively takes control of the process of formulating those rules. If opponents are unable to make similar commitments, it will be much more difficult for them to implement their projects at the local level.

As for how to prevent residents from bearing the cost of electricity, whether it involves building power plants oneself, signing long-term power purchase agreements, or providing direct subsidies to the power grid, the framework does not provide detailed instructions. The more specific the commitments are, the more likely they will become the subject of follow-up questions.