OpenAI Plans a Push for AI ‘Speed Limits’ as Data Centres Lose Favour
OpenAI will push Congress for AI "speed limits" after Tuesday's midterms and wants data centres renamed "compute campuses". Six in ten Americans don't want one nearby.
Six in ten Americans would be uncomfortable with a new data centre in their area, according to Pew Research Center. Part of OpenAI’s response is a new name. It wants its sites called “AI compute campuses”, as one piece of a Washington policy push that starts right after Tuesday’s US midterm elections.
What OpenAI is planning
Axios revealed the plans on Sunday. They come from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, and are timed for the lame-duck session of Congress. That is the stretch between the election and the day new members take their seats on 3 January. This year it opens on 9 November.
The main idea is what Lehane calls “speed limits”: mandatory safeguards for the most powerful AI systems, meant to keep people in control. “You’re going to see us talk more and more about the concept of speed limits,” he told Axios. OpenAI has published no bill text. It hasn’t said what the limits would measure or who would enforce them.
OpenAI also plans to propose state laws giving local residents “a meaningful say” in how data centre projects are built and what benefits they get. Other ideas cover help for workers whose jobs change because of AI, and a push for the US to shape global AI standards. Axios notes that it has a content licensing deal with OpenAI.
A new name for data centres
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the term to Business Insider: “Compute campuses better describes the scale and role of the infrastructure we’re building for AI.” Axios called the rebrand “intentionally provocative”.
The public mood explains the effort. In Pew’s survey of 10,548 US adults, carried out from 20 July to 9 August, 54% said data centres are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39% in January. Half said they are mostly bad for home energy costs, up from 38%. Only 4% said they have a mostly good effect in each of those areas.
OpenAI points to its site in Pike County, Ohio, as the model. In its August announcement it projected 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and 2,500 long-term jobs, plus a $40 million community fund. Those are OpenAI’s own forecasts, not counts.
It is not the company’s first move on regulation this autumn. Last week OpenAI asked California to tighten its AI safety law.
Why it matters
OpenAI is trying to set the terms of AI rules before a possibly tougher Congress writes its own. Until “speed limits” come with a threshold and an enforcer, it is a slogan, and a new name doesn’t change how much power or water a data centre uses.
