OpenAI wants to win over data-center opponents by calling them ‘compute campuses’ and promising local benefits
Source: Fortune ·
“A campus implies a university, not a warehouse,” says veteran brand strategist Allen Adamson of OpenAI’s new pitch to communities.
From the source
OpenAI has a new name for the loud, dull, gray buildings Americans don’t really want as their next-door neighbors, and it’s calling them “compute campuses.” Along with the rebrand comes a list of promises. On Thursday, the company published a National Community Compact, pledging to pay its own energy costs, disclose what its facilities do to the places around them, and give residents a say in how future sites it owns and operates are built. The announcement came just two days after voters backed restrictions or rejected pro-development proposals in all but one of the 41 local data-center ballot measures across 10 states, according to Ballotpedia. “Voters made their concerns about data centers clear in this week’s elections, and we need to listen and respond with concrete action,” OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane wrote on LinkedIn Thursday, while also acknowledging that data centers had become a proxy for concerns about affordability, corporate power, and communities…
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