OpenAI Publishes Community Compact and AI Campus Policy Blueprint

OpenAI published a National Community Compact and Compute Campus Policy Blueprint on November 5, 2026, committing future campuses it owns and operates to pay their full electricity and infrastructure costs and proposing rules for the wider industry.

The compact establishes a national baseline while requiring a locally tailored version at every future campus OpenAI owns and operates. OpenAI will engage residents early, using tools that can include surveys and listening sessions, provide a local point of contact throughout the campus’s life, and report publicly each year on progress.

Under the energy commitments, OpenAI will pay for the electricity it uses and the infrastructure needed to serve its sites. Before major spending begins, it will provide financial assurances to protect other customers if a project is delayed, reduced or canceled. The company will also provide utilities with realistic information about how much power its campuses will need and when for long-term planning.

Disclosure, Water and Local Investment

Accountability measures cover construction as well as operations. OpenAI will publish site-specific plans for temporary traffic, noise and lighting effects, commission independent noise studies before operations begin and annually afterward, and disclose site-level water and electricity use. It will not require public officials to sign nondisclosure agreements, retaining narrow confidentiality protections for legitimate security information, trade secrets, and proprietary or competitively sensitive information.

Each campus will have a water plan prioritizing closed-loop or low-water cooling. Workforce strategies will describe expected jobs and how residents can prepare and apply for them, with annual reports tracking hiring, training and apprenticeship participation. OpenAI will set local hiring goals where labor-market conditions allow and make sustained investments in priorities residents help select.

Local examples include an $80 million commitment to community priorities in Effingham County, Georgia. The compact identifies two resident-informed investments there: a $4.8 million grant providing free school meals for all 14,000 county students and $2 million to develop a local park. In Pike County, Ohio, families identified childcare as a priority, leading to a joint $6 million commitment from OpenAI and SB Energy.

The new documents build on OpenAI’s January 20, 2026, Stargate Community commitments to pay its own energy costs and tailor plans to local priorities. They also follow the November 2, 2026, launch of Grid Protectors, a program for agreements that would let future campuses reduce electricity demand during grid stress.

Policy Proposals for the Wider Industry

Where the compact covers OpenAI’s own campuses, the blueprint asks federal, state and local policymakers to establish comparable requirements across the industry. It recommends that state utility commissions create large-load tariffs requiring major electricity users to pay the incremental grid costs they create, with clear public explanations of cost allocation. It also supports voluntary demand-flexibility programs with clear operating rules, including load curtailment, power supplied from on-site generation or storage, and batteries or power controls that smooth demand.

Federal proposals include faster permitting for generation and transmission, clearer authority for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to expedite connections for ready-to-build projects subject to reliability and ratepayer protections, and reinstating and broadening technology-neutral clean-electricity tax incentives. For discretionary tax incentives, the blueprint seeks public terms, measurable commitments, reporting and clawbacks if material commitments are not met. It also calls for public workforce strategies and early purchasing plans so local suppliers can compete for contracts.

Georgia’s Existing Utility Agreement

The planned Effingham County campus connects those proposals to an existing utility arrangement. OpenAI’s agreement with Georgia Power allows the utility to reduce electricity deliveries to the campus by up to 1,000 megawatts during periods of high demand. For Project Camellia, OpenAI is contracting with Georgia Power for 3.2 gigawatts of power, delivered in phases between 2028 and 2032.

The blueprint describes voluntary corporate commitments as only a starting point, saying they cannot give communities lasting assurance at the scale needed. Its proposed policy requirements are intended to extend comparable protections beyond OpenAI’s future campuses.

That leaves two measures of progress: whether OpenAI’s project agreements and annual reports show it meeting the compact at its own campuses, and whether policymakers give residents comparable cost protections and disclosure when other developers build.