OpenAI publishes voluntary data center pledges after midterm election rebuke

OpenAI says residents near planned campuses will get written promises about electricity bills, water use and nondisclosure agreements. The compact covers only sites OpenAI owns and operates, while much of Stargate is built and held by partners such as Oracle.

What OpenAI promised

OpenAI says it will pay the full cost of the electricity its facilities use. It will also cover the grid upgrades that power providers need to serve them. It promises to throttle consumption during peak hours and send power back to the grid.

The compact commits OpenAI to closed-loop or low-water cooling and to publishing water and electricity use for each site. The company says it will not sign non-disclosure agreements with public officials, with exemptions for trade secrets, security concerns and competitively sensitive information. Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, told reporters at a Wednesday briefing that the blueprint had been in the works since August. He said he had met dozens of lawmakers and candidates since then, and that the timing had nothing to do with the election result.

The blueprint asks policymakers to write the same commitments into law. It proposes policies that would give communities a voice and protect them from new costs if a development is built where they live. OpenAI describes the document as a set of lessons it intends to apply as its projects go forward.

The vote that came first

Voters went to the polls on Tuesday 3 November. Of 41 local ballot measures across 10 states, voters backed restrictions or rejected pro-development measures in all but one, according to an analysis by Ballotpedia and additional results gathered by CNBC.

Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has called for an immediate moratorium on new facilities.

Where the pledges stop

Stargate is a $500 billion programme announced in January 2025 with SoftBank and Oracle; Abu Dhabi's MGX is among its investors. Only one campus is even partly in operation today: the flagship site in Abilene, Texas. At the end of September 2025, OpenAI said its planned sites would reach nearly 7 gigawatts of capacity and more than $400 billion of investment.

OpenAI said that puts it on a clear path to the full 10-gigawatt, $500 billion commitment it announced in January.

OpenAI paused its UK project, citing regulation and energy costs, the BBC reported. It also abandoned the Narvik site in Norway and canceled an 800-megawatt expansion at Abilene with Oracle, Bisnow reported.

Lehane has pitched economic benefits alongside the pledges. He is promising 2,500 positions for Ohio and points to $4.8 million for school lunches in Georgia, against planned project costs of more than $30 billion in that state, he told Reuters.

Opposition and market reaction

Data Center Watch, a research group, counted 45 projects worth $88 billion stalled by local opposition in the second quarter of 2026.

Investors split the sector after the vote. Applied Digital fell 8.8%, CoreWeave 9.5% and Cipher Digital 21%, Reuters reported. Microsoft rose 6.7%, Amazon 6.1% and Alphabet 3.2%, according to The Decoder.

What happens next

Lehane said the conversations help build momentum for when the new Congress is in session in late January.