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Gotta love how all the companies' platitudes about sustainability become ludicrous as they begin burning natural gas at prodigious scales. But don't worry, "AI will solve climate change" so we can just pump extra CO2 now, right guys?

I am deeply, deeply cynical and honestly angry about these companies and their self-righteous protestations of being ethical, or public benefit corporations or whatever. Anthropic is benefiting from xAI's Memphis data center that is violating (previous, not anymore!) EPA standards, causing disproportionate impacts to nearby African-American communities. All the while, Ants appear to be floating on some higher effective altruist / B-corp plane. The little people and their petty concerns are just bumps on the road to RSI and ASI after all.

I think your anger would be better placed with the institutional barriers to building clean energy in America that prevent these infrastructure companies from doing the right thing

transmission via HVDC is extremely difficult to build due to land permitting and right of way laws

grid interconnections take 5+ years just to get approved, let alone built

only 2 nuclear power plants have been built since 1978, each taking over 10 years

Their SWEs will all have Repetitive Strain Injuries long before they hit Recursive Self Improvement, I'm sure.
This is a collection of "OpenAI will boldly act in the abstract to provide air coverage for Texas leadership." With data centers under construction one would think they would have examples of successes or projects in progress available for reference. They'd claim credit if they had it so the silence is telling.

Big tech has consistently valued profit and growth above good stewardship; the onus is entirely on OpenAI to demonstrate that any of these claims aren't fluff with the projects that are already greenlit. When OpenAI presents plans to the communities prior to/alongside city counsels and drops the NDAs then there will be merit to this but our expectations should be somewhere between "super deep kola borehole" and "upper mantle".

Yeah if they were so committed to doing good, you'd think the billions of dollars they have spent would bear some evidence of that by now.
...provide air coverage for Texas leadership.

The GOP runs Texas. The governor, sec of state, AG, and both houses are republican. Since when have they ever wanted or needed air coverage?

Building stuff is good stewardship. We complain about NIMBYs. But with a few relatively modest regulations data centers can be quite friendly. They don’t generate traffic, congestion, etc. They don’t strain school or police infrastructure. Basically need some noise regulations. But the NIMBYs will kill it.
https://texas-connects.com/ is also running lots of commercials locally. But both this open letter _and_ the commercials intentionally skate around the resource needs.

> OpenAI will pay our own way and protect residential and small-business customers [...] OpenAI will work to support new power generation in Texas

Notice how this very intentionally doesn't say they will work to support generating as much or more power than they will use? Because if they could do that, they would just generate their own power. It doesn't matter if they "pay their own way", they are now competing with households.

Same with water, all of these projects want to leech on existing systems because they don't even want to entertain developing their own systems.

However, having worked inside Texas DCs for a long time now, I think it's just the burst that's the issue, not the concepts. Sadly they'll share our resources, but I think they should pay a premium on their energy compared to residential (but it's hard to reconcile this with other commercial ventures that do not).

This is a play to say something without putting down the ink that binds them.

> We will minimize water consumption and prioritize efficient cooling technologies, including closed-loop systems.

> We will work with local communities and water providers to ensure our projects are responsibly planned around available resources

I can promise you that I'll do everything to consider the needs and wants of others.

But I won't promise to take actions that take those wants or needs into account, much less even actually consider them.

The AI companies are spending close to a trillion dollars building data centers. On top of that, they’re now promising they’ll handle all environmental and power needs. I believe them, they probably will do that, thats not even too expensive. They need to however recoup this investment somehow, which is the fundamental problem with a technology like AI.

The only plausible way to recoup 1T is to automate large swaths of human jobs so that the companies stop spending money on humans, and instead give money to them. This is probably why the public doesn’t want AI, because AI in the rules of current society is perfectly designed to disempower and ruin humans, but is not actually capable enough to ruin humans in a state of nature.

Large massive data-centers that makes this economics work is not actually a fact of life, in a less stable country they’re actually a liability. If a countries technical prowess comes from a data center then an adversary just needs to bomb it to knee cap that country. On the other hand, if a companies technical prowess comes from a thousands of well trained humans, well that’s actually not easy to get rid of. They’re not stationary, they’re adaptable, they can pick up new skills quicker and cheaper. Any king would much rather invest in humans and not AI.

But in a country like US, where it’s hard to even imagine such instability, AI is perfect at outcompeting humans and ruining them short term, and ruining the country long term. No wonder, this seems to be turning out to become the most negative reaction the public has ever had to the advent of new transformative technology. Unfortunately I don’t think it will work, the AI companies are just going to steamroll them, steal their jobs and dignity and then put them on UBI and pay themselves on the back as if they did a good thing.

> then put them on UBI

You may be too optimistic.

Every single investment aimed at deploying labor-saving innovation has the impact of reducing the number of workers you need per unit of output.

That does not mean fewer jobs, it means that jobs graduate to higher order ones that produce more, and it means more goods/services chasing the fixed supply of workers, translating to deflation (higher real wages / more purchasing power).

If Virginia or Louisiana should profit by this then so be it. Californian land-use laws will have a net effect of -8 house seats against Texas. That is good. It should happen. If Texans will be poorer so Virginians will be richer, that is also good. May the American federal system reign forever. Allowing for states as experiments and letting them suffer their consequences is good. It is a machine for us to iterate on our present and future prosperity.
Polling shows a fairly bipartisan opposition to data centers, so it could encourage more states to join in with pauses of their own.
When experiments fail the constituents pay the price, not the experimenters.
I don't think these data centres bring that much money locally.

Beyond the construction they employ very little people and bring very little taxes at a gargantuan cost in resources.

This letter says nothing about Louisiana or Virginia, what exactly are you talking about?
Virginia has more power infrastructure in place but said infrastructure is already seeing significant DC build out; I know little about power distribution in Louisiana but would be surprised if there was extensive spare capacity in the transmission lines and generation facilities. I'm surprised that the rust belt hasn't seen more uptake since they had all that manufacturing capacity but the backing power generation/distribution may have atrophied in the intervening years.
How is Louisiana going to profit by it besides selling hot plates to the construction workers?
This is delicious comedy.
> It is a machine for us to iterate on our present and future prosperity.

The former middle class has entered the chat.

The problem is that the costs of Texas blowing natural gas carbon into the air are largely paid by wildfires in California, so we are going to need another mechanism to make sure that is felt in Texas as well.
How much does OpenAI actually control the way the data centers are built and deployed?

I don’t know much about the impact of their data centers compared to others, but there weren’t many (if any) concrete commitments in this letter. The promises all seem like areas that even an evil corporation could pay lip service to.

Major tenants like OAI have near total control. These GW-class datacenters are built to spec for the tenant. Construction doesn't start until all the details are signed off.
> How much does OpenAI actually control the way the data centers are built and deployed?

Assuming OAI is the sole tenant in these facilities, I'd say we are approaching 100% control.

OpenAI et al can establish a Data Center PAC or contribute to one then lobby our political leaders like citizens (see Citzens United)
With the amount of cash OpenAI is splashing around they could easily write it into the contracts, but the current incentive structure prioritizes time between ground breaking and powered GPUs in racks. OpenAI has shown complete disinterest in the impact of AI writ large and will only reduce their community/infra impact to optimize that time to racked GPU along the Pareto frontier.
OpenAI:

Commit to 117% of your datacenter power demand to be supplied by nuclear, wind, and solar, so it arrives the same day (or sooner) than your demand starts.

This isn't that hard.

it is not only "that hard", it is impossible

1/ deploying solar takes years to go through multiple layers of environmental review at municipal, state and federal levels

2/ the generator interconnection queue takes 5+ years just to permit new grid connections

3/ building new HVDC has been blocked by permits and right of way laws, which is another barrier to effective solar deployment

4/ there are only two commercial nuclear reactors built in America since 1978, and they each took 10+ years to build

Because all these things require a grid, unlike on-site generators. Most grid equipment (specially high voltage transformers) are backordered and all companies have empty inventories. Unlike traditional companies these AI companies are deathly afraid of not getting to AGI first, so they can't wait.
Why can’t these idiots just mandate that you have to build out clean energy to power the data centers. It’s such a simple bit of legislation that they just will not do.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-pr...

"Abbott is asking the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail Abbott’s ordered “comprehensive verification and audit” should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said."

https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comp...

"“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” said Governor Abbott. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”"

https://environmentamerica.org/texas/center/media-center/new...

"The Lone Star State generated the equivalent of 37% of its electricity from solar, wind and geothermal power in 2025"

While I would like this, my guess is it is hard to reconcile with all the other commercial ventures in the state (including datacenters) that aren't subject to such a requirement.
> OpenAI supports transparency and accountability

Just like it supported 'Open AI'?

As someone who lived in TX through the winter storm power crisis in 2021, I approve of the pause.
pittsburgh has many old power plants that are perfect for data center converts

when i go home and hear about this i'm conflicted. it brings short term economic prosperity. what's the cost if there's no commitment to clean energy in reality

the developers on these projects will do whatever it takes to simply get the project done

Anyone can access the letter PDF? I've been trying this link and it only timeout https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/oai_abbot-texas-letter_8-7-26.pdf
I wonder if AI will be the thing that gets Texas to finally connect to the rest of the country’s regional power grids rather than being isolated to one state.
This reminds of the times when companies made large public statements on clean energy and going carbon free during the Obama (and partially Biden) eras. The only difference here is now is a letter to a governor, which is signaling 1) companies believe the way to solve data centers is on a state basis and 2) if they don't do it, they can perhaps blame a lack of "guidance from local officials" versus any part on their own, they have done their due dilligence. I am curious to more see what states don't get any personal mailings, I think that's a better indication than anything actually written.
Zero commitment to clean power.
This letter clearly wasn’t written by AI.
I'm always surprised by how cynical the comments on the internet are about America's technology leaders and U.S. industrial expansion.
I only have one question is this legally binding in US in any way if not what's the point virtue signalling? Can openai make it's books public to ensure that it has the money to fulfill it's extra commitments.
Yes, the cheque's in the post.
They’d do better with a bribe, Texas runs on corruption. I’m sure the campaign contribution checks are already written though
It is amazing seeing how openly corrupt red states are in recent years. At least blue states still attempt to maintain a fig leaf. Has it always been this way with the red states or have things legitimately gotten worse?
The main issue with wanting to block data centers in any specific location, is the hyperscalers will just move to building them wherever politics are most favorable. If protesters in your blue state block construction, they'll just build more in red states, giving the red states more leverage in how AI progress continues. If they are blocked across the board in the US, more will be build abroad, in countries that would never give credence to anti-datacenter movements that would stall economic growth.

The best option is to get everyone on the same page about AI benefits and hazards, and not be unrealistic about the way AI could shape up as a transformative element of human society.