Can the AI industry persuade data center opponents by getting rid of NDAs?
TechCrunch Anthony Ha ● Covered by 3 sources
Amazon ditched NDAs in data center talks with local governments. It’s a small fix for a bigger secrecy problem haunting AI buildouts.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Anthony Ha — read the original for the full story.
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Amazon has said it will stop using nondisclosure agreements while negotiating data center deals with local governments, following Microsoft’s earlier move. The announcement showed up inside a broader Amazon blog post arguing that data centers help communities, which is a very Amazon way to make a big change look like a footnote.
On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan, and Anthony Ha used the move as a springboard into the growing backlash around AI infrastructure. Sean argued that the industry keeps tripping over the same problem: it is bad at explaining what these projects are for, and it often pushes them through local talks in secret. That secrecy, he said, leaves people guessing about the effect on property values, electricity bills, and water use.
Rebecca was more cautious about the moratoriums popping up in places like San Francisco, and pointed out that many of them only last a year or two. That matters because data centers often won’t come online for two, three, four, or five years anyway, which gives companies time to wait out the politics. The buildouts are also getting slowed by zoning and funding, so a temporary ban is not the same thing as a permanent wall.
Anthony added that New York’s moratorium, which covers permits for large projects, is tied to an environmental review process expected to take about a year. He also noted that these pauses are often framed as a chance to study the issue, not reject it outright, which leaves room for a later reversal. But he said the companies themselves clearly feel pressure, and that is why this has become such a loud fight.
The bigger theme in the conversation was communication, or the lack of it. Sean said the tech industry keeps making the same mistake across AI and data centers: assuming people will understand the value without a real explanation. He pointed to Tesla’s still-murky “abundance” pitch as another example of a company trying to sell a grand vision while sounding like it swallowed a slide deck whole.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
The industry keeps mistaking secrecy for strategy, and that habit is starting to look expensive. Dropping NDAs is not heroism; it’s the bare minimum before asking a town to host a giant power-hungry machine next door. Tech loves to talk about trust, then acts amazed when nobody trusts a locked door.
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