OpenAI Drops NDAs With Officials, but Only at Campuses It Runs── The pledge opens officials' contracts and water and power data at sites OpenAI runs; exceptions, partner-run sites and PR contractors stay closed

On November 5, 2026, OpenAI published a pledge on AI data centers, the "National Community Compact," saying it will not sign non-disclosure agreements with public officials at future sites it owns and operates. OpenAI says it will stop using NDAs with public officials. What does that open up about its AI data centers, and what does it leave closed? It opens contracts with public officials, and the water and power figures, at campuses OpenAI owns and runs itself. Three exceptions (security, trade secrets and competitive information), sites run by partners, and NDAs attached to PR contractors all stay closed.

01OpenAI's pledge opens officials' contracts at the AI campuses it owns and operates

What becomes visible under OpenAI's pledge is limited to the future AI data centers that the company itself owns and operates. At those sites, OpenAI will not sign non-disclosure agreements with local officials, and it will publish water and power use for each site. The company calls these sites "compute campuses."

A non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, is a contract in which the signers promise not to reveal what they learn in a negotiation. In data center deals, companies and local officials have signed NDAs that kept the terms of a project out of public view. US reporting has documented cases in which residents learned the terms only after their council had voted.

My view is that a reader should look at the scope of this pledge before its tone. There are three things to check. Which sites does it cover? Which contracts? Which exceptions remain? With those three answers, a reader can measure for themselves how far the pledge reaches.

02The pledge has three parts, and three exceptions to openness remain

OpenAI's pledge has three parts, with a separate policy proposal attached. Putting together reports from the Turkish news agency Anadolu (AA) and from the tech outlets FoneArena and The Neuron gives the following picture.

Reading the fourth card as part of the pledge leads to a mistake. The three parts of the pledge bind OpenAI alone. The policy blueprint would bind other companies only after a state turned it into law. Mixing the two gives the false impression that other companies' sites have opened up too.

The power commitment is worded a little more precisely. According to AA, OpenAI said it would cover the full cost not only of electricity but also of related infrastructure. Here too, the commitment applies to future sites the company owns and operates.

03In the reported cases, NDAs kept the terms from residents before local councils reviewed the plans

Apart from the three exceptions, contracts with officials will be open. So at which stage, and from whom, did the old NDAs hide things? A report distributed by OPB, the Oregon public broadcaster, in August 2026 describes the pattern.

According to OPB, researchers in Virginia surveyed 31 data center projects from the previous year and found NDAs in at least 25 of them. An NDA does its work between the moment a company first approaches a locality and the moment the local council reviews and decides. During that window, the officials who signed cannot tell residents the terms.

The OPB report also quotes residents in Louisiana. They said they first learned the terms after the project had already been decided.

The point of the figure is timing. With an NDA in place, the moment residents learn the terms moves to after the council's decision. Once the review is over, the chance for residents to object at that review has already passed.

04The pledge followed Microsoft's earlier move and a wave of state action

Before OpenAI acted, another company and state governments had already moved against hiding terms ahead of council review. Microsoft announced that it would end the use of NDAs with local governments. The company said it was reviewing agreements still in force around the world and working with the other parties to unwind them.

States moved as well. According to OPB, the governor of Pennsylvania barred state agencies from signing data center NDAs, and bills to ban them had been introduced in at least four states.

The exceptions the two companies keep are similar. Both allow trade secrets and competitive information to stay protected. The differences lie in how existing agreements are handled and how the covered sites are described. I could not confirm how Microsoft's post defines the sites it covers.

The timing lines up as well. AA reported that OpenAI's pledge came two days after the US midterm elections, at a time of growing scrutiny of data centers. No source shows that the election results produced the pledge, though. What can be said is the order of events: earlier moves by a company and by states, then the election, then the pledge.

05The checkable parts are the site-by-site water and power figures and the handling of existing agreements

Whatever led to the pledge, residents want to know whether it will be kept. Two things can be counted and checked from outside.

The first is the water and power use that will be published for each site. According to FoneArena, OpenAI said it would release both figures for every campus it runs. Once the figures are out, residents can see how much water and power the campus in their town uses without having to ask the local authority.

The second is how existing agreements are treated. OpenAI wrote that it voided an agreement in Effingham County, Georgia, in July. The Neuron reported this as OpenAI's own account; it is not a record checked by a third party. Residents can check it themselves against the county's council records.

The top row of the figure can be checked against figures and records. The bottom row stays out of sight even after the pledge. For security information and trade secrets, OpenAI may still sign NDAs with officials.

The policy blueprint widens the list of things to report. According to FoneArena, it asks the whole industry to report on water, power, noise and employment. But it is a proposal addressed to states, and so far it binds no company.

06Partner-run sites, PR contractors and state law sit outside the pledge

What can be counted and checked is limited to figures for sites OpenAI runs itself. Three things remain outside the pledge.

The first is the range of sites. The Neuron wrote that publishing the blueprint does not enact its protections. Nor, it noted, does the compact automatically extend to every partner-operated facility. Residents who want to rely on the pledge at a jointly built site first need to find out who owns it and who operates it.

The second is who signs. The pledge covers only NDAs with public officials. On November 5, the same day as the pledge, the nonprofit newsroom Wisconsin Watch reported on a recruitment drive. Paid social media posters were being sought to promote a data center in Port Washington, Wisconsin, and anyone interested had to sign an NDA even before applying.

OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage are all involved in that site. But the report does not show whether OpenAI owns and operates it, or what relationship the recruiter has with OpenAI. So it cannot be called a breach of the pledge. What it does show is that NDAs with people other than officials are still being requested around a site OpenAI is involved in.

The third is state law. Whether NDAs will be required to be narrowly limited across the industry depends on states turning the blueprint into law. Until such laws pass, the terms at other companies' sites can stay hidden as before.

07Whether the pledge holds can be judged only once site reports appear

Three things sit outside the pledge, and even inside it, the pledge's weight cannot yet be measured. The pledge looks ahead to future sites, and at the time of the announcement not a single site report had been published.

My view is that the pledge's weight will become clear only after two things appear. One is the first water and power report from a site. The other is a debate in a state legislature prompted by the blueprint. I found no source that says when either will come.

Until then, residents, and companies that rely on AI services, can check a nearby site by starting with the question of who runs it.

At a site OpenAI does not run, the pledge offers nothing. Residents there will have to read council records directly to see whether an NDA was signed. Where the pledge does not reach, public records are the first thing to rely on.

The pledge to end NDAs with public officials opens contracts and water and power figures at sites OpenAI owns and runs, no further. Three exceptions, partner-run sites and PR contractors stay closed. The pledge can only be weighed against site figures and council records.