Photo: A large data center campus in Council Bluffs, Iowa / Chad Davis, Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
By: JBizNews Desk 🌎
OpenAI promised Thursday that every future data-center campus it owns and operates will pay the full cost of its electricity and the grid infrastructure needed to serve it, part of a new package of commitments to the communities that host them, the company announced. The pledges answer a growing worry: that giant AI campuses push up local power bills.
Under the plan, called the National Community Compact, OpenAI says it will seek residents’ input early enough to shape project plans and report publicly every year. Before major spending begins, it will provide financial assurances so other customers are protected if a project is delayed, reduced or canceled. Each campus gets a water plan with low-water cooling, site-level energy and water reporting, published construction plans and independent noise studies. OpenAI also says it will publish expected jobs, work with unions and training providers, and invest in local priorities residents help pick. It will not use non-disclosure agreements with public officials, with narrow exceptions for security information and trade secrets.
Alongside the commitments, OpenAI published a policy blueprint asking federal, state and local lawmakers to write similar rules into law for the whole industry, CNBC reported. The blueprint is a proposal, not enacted law. In Georgia, OpenAI said its agreement with Georgia Power already lets the utility cut up to 1,000 megawatts of power to its planned Effingham County campus when demand peaks.
The announcement builds on pledges OpenAI made starting in January for its Stargate project and later in Georgia and Ohio; it is not the company’s first such promise. It comes two days after midterm elections in which data centers drew voter backlash, CNBC reported. “This will help ensure that there is a very high floor in terms of how people move forward,” OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told reporters.
In plain terms: if the promise holds, your electric bill should not go up to power an AI campus near you. But these are company pledges plus a wish list for lawmakers, not binding rules yet.
JBizNews Desk | San Francisco
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