OpenAI weighs cutting 2027 data center capacity after the midterms

Felix Laurent 5 Nov 2026 3 min read

Big tech

OpenAI's senior leaders discussed on November 4, 2026 whether to reset the company's data center capacity expectations for 2027, the Wall Street Journal reported. The talks came a day after Democrats who campaigned on construction pauses won governor races in Texas and Ohio. A day later, OpenAI published new commitments to the communities where it builds.

On X, the story spread as "~40% of 2027 capacity wiped out overnight." That is not what the reporting says. OpenAI has not cut anything yet, and the 40% figure describes a different number.

What OpenAI is weighing for 2027

Several outlets cited the Journal's report. The question on the table was whether the election results mean OpenAI must lower its capacity expectations for next year. No decision has been announced.

OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane was more direct with Bloomberg. He said it is possible some OpenAI projects will be delayed. "People are certainly going to be mindful of how voters express themselves," he said.

The pressure is concrete. OpenAI's largest US projects sit in exactly the states where the votes went against data centers.

Which states turned against data centers

In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated Governor Greg Abbott, CNBC reported. She has called for an immediate moratorium on data center development, according to Bloomberg. Texas hosts OpenAI's Stargate campuses.

In Ohio, Amy Acton defeated Vivek Ramaswamy. She supports a "conditional moratorium" that would require data centers to cover 100% of their utility costs and build with union labor. Ohio is home to PORTS-Pike, where OpenAI secured 8 gigawatts of capacity in August. That capacity comes online in phases starting in 2028, CNBC says.

Local voters went further. Of 41 data center ballot measures in 10 states, voters sided against data centers in all but one, according to CNBC, citing Ballotpedia. Ohio alone had 21 of them. The only exception was in Harwood, North Dakota.

So where did the 40% come from?

What the viral post got wrong

The viral post on X made four claims. The table compares them with the reporting.

Claim on X	What the reporting shows
OpenAI is cutting 2027 capacity	Leaders discussed whether to reset expectations; nothing was cut
Four states: Texas, Ohio, Georgia, New Mexico	Reports name Texas, Ohio and Georgia; we found no report on New Mexico
All four elected anti-data-center governors	Texas and Ohio winners back moratoriums; we could not confirm a Georgia plan
~40% of 2027 capacity wiped out	Evercore ISI says Texas, Georgia and Ohio hold over 40% of all planned US data center capacity, as relayed by outlets citing the WSJ

The 40% describes the whole industry's planned pipeline in three states, not OpenAI's 2027 capacity. Some of it is also further along than the post suggests: 87.5% of Ohio's 2027 pipeline is already under construction, according to the same coverage.

OpenAI answered the vote in public the next day.

OpenAI's National Community Compact

On November 5, OpenAI published a National Community Compact and a Compute Campus Policy Blueprint. Every future campus that OpenAI owns and operates will get its own local compact, with public reports each year.

The main commitments:

pay the full cost of the electricity it uses and the grid infrastructure it needs;
give financial guarantees so other customers are protected if a project is delayed, reduced or canceled;
publish water, electricity and noise data for each site;
stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials, except for narrow security and trade secret cases;
publish expected jobs and report on hiring every year.

OpenAI also asks lawmakers to turn these into rules. Lehane told Bloomberg that a company that wants to build in a community has to "do it with the community and get the community input."

The compact follows a pattern. Days earlier, OpenAI was preparing to rename its sites "AI compute campuses", as we covered in our piece on the planned rebrand.

Will OpenAI cut its 2027 data center capacity

Possibly, but not by 40%, and not overnight. OpenAI has only discussed resetting its expectations, and Lehane talks about delays rather than cancellations. Projects already under construction are hard to stop, and new governors take office in January.

The bigger shift is in how OpenAI builds. Paying for its own power, dropping NDAs and reporting site data were exactly the demands voters backed at the ballot box. If those terms satisfy new governors, OpenAI's 2027 plans may slip by months. If states impose moratoriums anyway, the cut could be real. It would hit the three states that hold the largest share of planned US capacity.