OpenAI has released two policy documents aimed at shaping responsible AI infrastructure as compute campuses expand across the United States. The company published a National Community Compact and a Compute Campus Policy Blueprint that together articulate baseline commitments for company-owned sites and recommend rules for policymakers to ensure communities hosting such campuses receive protections, transparency, and tangible local benefits.
Under the National Community Compact, OpenAI pledges a set of consistent promises for each campus it owns and operates. The company says it will engage residents early in the planning process so that local input can inform design choices and will provide a dedicated local contact through a campus’s lifecycle. OpenAI also commits to annual public reporting on progress against the compact, including site-level disclosures of water and electricity usage.
Common commitments the compact lists include paying the full cost of the electricity a campus consumes and covering the infrastructure needed to serve that load. OpenAI says it will provide financial assurances before major spending begins to protect other customers if a project is delayed or canceled, and it will publish construction plans plus independent noise studies prior to operations and annually thereafter. The compact further promises development of a water plan for each campus, with a priority on closed-loop or low-water cooling approaches.
On workforce and local investment, OpenAI commits to publishing anticipated job counts, working with unions and training providers to help residents prepare, reporting annually on hiring and apprenticeship outcomes, and making sustained investments in locally selected priorities. The compact also restricts the use of nondisclosure agreements with public officials to narrow circumstances — specifically protections for legitimate security information, trade secrets, or competitively sensitive material.
The Compute Campus Policy Blueprint moves beyond voluntary company commitments and urges state and federal regulators to adopt rules that advance responsible investment and protect communities. The blueprint calls on state utility commissions to require large electricity customers to cover the costs they impose on the grid and to protect other ratepayers if a project does not proceed. It also recommends utilities make it easier for campuses to connect to the grid when those sites can safely reduce demand during scarcity.
OpenAI cites its planned Effingham County, Georgia campus as an example, describing an agreement with Georgia Power that permits the utility to reduce power delivered to the site by up to 1,000 megawatts during peak demand. At the federal level, the company suggests Congress could support growing electricity needs for AI compute by accelerating transmission upgrades and restoring or expanding tax incentives for clean electricity.
Accountability and transparency are central themes in the blueprint. OpenAI advocates public reporting requirements on water, energy, noise, and hiring, and urges narrow limits on when developers may require public officials to sign nondisclosure agreements. The document recommends that any state or local tax incentives be public, tied to measurable commitments, and accompanied by mechanisms to recover benefits if developers do not deliver on promises.
To bolster local economic impact, the blueprint proposes practical steps: developers should share purchasing plans early so local suppliers can compete for contracts, and employers together with building trades unions and community colleges should use hiring forecasts to train residents for construction and longer-term operations such as maintaining power and cooling systems. These measures are intended to ensure economic benefits from compute campuses are widely shared.
OpenAI points to earlier, location-specific commitments as examples of community-driven outcomes. In Effingham County, the company says residents helped design a $4.8 million grant to provide free school meals for all 14,000 students in the county. In Pike County, Ohio, local feedback led to a joint $6 million commitment from OpenAI and SB Energy to support childcare.
OpenAI frames these documents as the next step in an effort that began with January’s Stargate commitments and subsequent site-level pledges. The company says the National Community Compact will apply to all future campuses it owns and operates and that the Compute Campus Policy Blueprint is intended to inform rules applied industry-wide to ensure consistent protections and shared benefits wherever compute campuses are developed.
Taken together, the compact and blueprint set a detailed baseline for how OpenAI expects to develop its own sites and how it would like policymakers to regulate others. By emphasizing early community engagement, public reporting, financial protections for other ratepayers, and concrete local investments, OpenAI aims to establish a standard for responsible AI infrastructure that balances operational needs with community interests.
As compute demand grows, the company’s proposals offer a roadmap for aligning large-scale AI deployment with local priorities; whether regulators and other developers adopt these recommendations will shape how communities experience the expansion of AI compute in the years ahead.
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