OpenAI is quietly renaming data centers ‘compute campuses’

OpenAI used the term "compute campus" repeatedly, and "data center" only twice, in its roughly 900-word announcement of a new "Grid Protectors Program" starting with a site in Effingham County, Georgia, aimed at addressing concerns about strain on local power grids. Critics including PauseAI US's Holly Elmore and the NAACP's Abre' Conner told The Verge the rebrand does not address environmental and community harms, with Elmore calling the electricity announcement "woefully tone deaf." The timing follows an Axios report that OpenAI planned to rebrand data centers as "AI compute campuses" as part of a policy and PR push after Tuesday's midterms.