OpenAI announced a National Community Compact on Nov. 5, 2026, pledging to pay electricity and infrastructure costs, disclose resource use and involve residents in planning at future computing campuses it owns and operates.
That scope matters: the company’s announcement defines the compact around those future owned-and-operated sites, rather than every facility supplying OpenAI’s computing capacity. Alongside it, OpenAI published a Compute Campus Policy Blueprint asking policymakers to establish broader industry rules.
What OpenAI is promising communities
OpenAI says each future campus it owns and operates will have a local compact. The company promises to engage residents early enough for their input to shape project plans, provide a local contact throughout the campus’s life and report publicly each year on its progress.
On power, OpenAI pledges to cover the full cost of the electricity it uses and the infrastructure needed to serve it. Before major spending begins, it also promises financial assurances intended to protect other customers if a project is delayed, reduced or canceled.
The resource commitments include a water plan for each campus, a priority on closed-loop or low-water cooling, and public reporting of site-level water and electricity use. OpenAI also promises to publish construction plans and independent noise studies before operations begin and annually afterward.
Its pledge on confidentiality has exceptions. OpenAI says it will not use nondisclosure agreements with public officials, while allowing narrow protections for legitimate security information, trade secrets, and proprietary or competitively sensitive information.
