OpenAI has promised that households will not have to pay for the electricity its future data centres consume, in a new National Community Compact published on Thursday, 5 November 2026.
The compact sets out what communities can expect from OpenAI at future compute campuses that the company owns and operates. It was published alongside an 18-page Compute Campus Policy Blueprint, which asks federal, state and local policymakers to turn the same protections into law for the whole data-centre industry.
“Today we’re publishing our National Community Compact and a Compute Campus Policy Blueprint,” OpenAI said in its announcement. “The compact sets out what communities can expect from OpenAI at future campuses that we own and operate.”
The announcement comes two days after voters in the United States backed restrictions on data-centre projects in 40 of 41 local ballot measures across 10 states on 3 November, according to figures cited by multiple outlets. OpenAI says it planned the announcement before those results and had been working on the compact since August.
What OpenAI is pledging
The headline promise concerns electricity bills. OpenAI says it will pay the full cost of the electricity it uses and the infrastructure needed to serve it, and will provide financial assurances before major spending begins so that other customers are protected if a project is delayed, reduced or cancelled. Bloomberg summarised the position as: “Households shouldn’t bear the costs of powering data centers.” OpenAI has also signed the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge.
The compact also promises that OpenAI will not require non-disclosure agreements from public officials as a condition for discussing or negotiating a project, with narrow exceptions for legitimate security information, trade secrets or competitively sensitive information. OpenAI says it voided its non-disclosure agreements in Effingham County, Georgia, in July.
Each future campus will get its own local compact, early engagement with residents, a local point of contact and an annual public progress report. OpenAI says it will publish a water plan for each campus, prefer closed-loop or low-water cooling, and publish site-level water and electricity use, construction plans and independent noise studies before operations begin and annually afterwards.
On jobs, the company says it will publish expected job numbers, work with unions and training providers, and report annually on hiring and apprenticeships. It also promises sustained investment in priorities chosen by residents.
OpenAI also says its campuses will be flexible about power use, reducing consumption at peak times and sending electricity back to the grid where possible. In Georgia, its agreement with Georgia Power allows the utility to cut up to 1,000 megawatts to the planned Effingham County campus during periods of high demand.
What the compact does not cover
The pledges have clear limits, and they matter to how much the compact will change in practice.
First, the compact applies only to future campuses that OpenAI owns and operates. It does not automatically cover partner-owned sites, which account for a large share of OpenAI’s computing capacity, including much of the Stargate capacity built with partners such as Oracle.
Second, the compact does not set out penalties, a dispute process or independent verification of the electricity and water figures OpenAI publishes. The company checks its own performance in its annual reports, a point noted in coverage of the announcement. The promise is therefore a commitment to pay and to report, not a guarantee enforced by an outside body.
Third, OpenAI does not literally promise that local electricity rates can never rise. Rates can move for other reasons, including wider grid costs. The pledge is that OpenAI will pay its own full costs and provide financial assurances, so that its demand does not push costs onto other customers.
No new data-centre site, capacity figure or new partner was announced in this release.
The policy blueprint: asking lawmakers to make it law
The second document, the Compute Campus Policy Blueprint, is not a set of OpenAI’s own binding rules. It is a call for policymakers to make the same protections mandatory across the industry.
It asks state utility commissions to create large-load tariffs that make big users pay the incremental grid costs they cause, and calls for mandatory public reporting of noise, water, energy and economic impacts. It also asks for a ban on developers requiring non-disclosure agreements from public officials, public tax-incentive terms with measurable commitments and clawbacks if a developer falls short, faster permitting and transmission, and restored or expanded clean-electricity tax credits.
OpenAI’s own line in the blueprint is blunt: “voluntary measures alone don’t meet the scale of this moment.”
Georgia and Ohio: the first test cases
The compact builds on commitments OpenAI made earlier this year in Georgia and Ohio, and those two states show what the pledges look like in practice.
In Effingham County, Georgia, near Savannah, OpenAI has made an $80 million community commitment around its planned campus. That includes a $4.8 million grant for free school meals for all 14,000 students in the county and $2 million for a local park.
In Pike County, Ohio, OpenAI and SB Energy have made a joint $6 million commitment for childcare. The blueprint says the Ohio campus is expected to create 2,500 long-term operating jobs at an average salary of $80,000, along with 26,000 construction jobs.
Why now
Data centres have become a political issue in the United States because of the scale of their electricity demand. Residents near proposed sites have raised concerns about higher bills, water use, noise and the size of tax incentives offered to developers.
The backlash showed up at the ballot box on 3 November, when voters went against data-centre projects in 40 of 41 local measures across 10 states. The same doubts over data-centre spending and returns on artificial intelligence investment have weighed on markets this week, with chip stocks falling sharply as the Nasdaq confirmed a correction.
OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, said the company had been working on the compact for months and that the announcement was planned before the election results. The compact builds on community commitments OpenAI made in January 2026 under its Stargate programme, and on specific commitments in Georgia and Ohio.
What happens next
The test of the compact will be in the details of the first campuses built under it: whether the financial assurances hold if a project is scaled back, whether the published water and electricity figures are complete, and whether other developers and lawmakers pick up the blueprint’s proposals.
For now, the compact is a voluntary promise from one company. Whether it becomes an industry standard depends on the policymakers OpenAI is asking to act.
Frequently asked questions
What is OpenAI’s National Community Compact?
It is a set of commitments published on 5 November 2026 covering future data-centre campuses OpenAI owns and operates, including paying the full cost of the electricity it uses, no non-disclosure agreements with public officials, water plans, published site-level data and annual progress reports.
Will the compact stop local electricity bills rising?
Not on its own. OpenAI pledges to pay its full electricity and infrastructure costs and to provide financial assurances before major spending, so its demand does not push costs onto other customers. Rates can still move for other reasons.
Does the compact cover all OpenAI data centres?
No. It applies to future campuses OpenAI owns and operates. Partner-owned sites, which host a large share of OpenAI’s computing capacity, are not automatically covered.
What is the Compute Campus Policy Blueprint?
An 18-page document asking federal, state and local policymakers to make protections like large-load tariffs, public impact reporting and a ban on developer non-disclosure agreements into law for the whole data-centre industry.
Sources
- OpenAI, “Setting a new standard for responsible AI infrastructure”, 5 Nov 2026 — https://openai.com/index/setting-new-standard-responsible-ai-infrastructure/
- OpenAI, Compute Campus Policy Blueprint (PDF), Nov 2026 — https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/compute-campus-policy-blueprint.pdf
- Bloomberg (Dina Bass), “OpenAI to change how it handles data-center efforts after outcry”, 5 Nov 2026 — https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-to-change-how-it-handles-data-center-efforts-after-outcry
- Engadget, “OpenAI says it will protect local resources and report on the impact of its data centers”, 5 Nov 2026 — https://www.engadget.com/2307590/openai-says-it-will-protect-local-resources-and-report-on-the-impact-of-its-data-centers/
- Business Standard, “OpenAI promises greater transparency in data-centre deals after backlash”, 6 Nov 2026 — https://www.business-standard.com/amp/technology/tech-news/openai-promises-greater-transparency-in-data-centre-deals-after-backlash-126110600138_1.html
