Data Centers Buy Community Love: OpenAI Funds Lazy River for $43B Site
zck · x · 2026-09-02
As public sentiment sours, AI developers are offering massive community incentives to secure data center locations.
Key Examples:
- OpenAI/Oracle: Donated $10 million for a new recreation center with a lazy river in Saline, MI, linked to the $43B Project Stargate.
- Meta: Gave $50k bonuses to teachers in Richland Parish, LA.
- Compass Datacenters: Contributed $15m for an animal shelter in Ellis County, TX.
- NorthPoint: Proposed $10k per household in Hazle Township, PA, for an Amazon data center.
Context: Politicians from both parties are encouraging "wish lists" to court developers, shifting the dynamic from resistance to negotiation.
More from Companies & People
- 562 AI PM job postings split into 4 roles — Model PM tops pay at $345K median — aakashgupta · 2026-10-18
- SGLang Summit sponsors grow from 11 to 36 in one week; Lip-Bu Tan, Lilian Weng to speak — BanghuaZ · 2026-10-18
- Yacine MTB: Users will remember how Anthropic treated them once intelligence proliferates — yacineMTB · 2026-10-18
- Periodic's CoLM talk: when does training your own model beat frontier + harness? — heghbalz · 2026-10-18
- After GHC Cancellation, GitHub and Cloudflare Offer 175 Free Conference Passes — michellechen · 2026-10-18
- Ex-Apple Siri Engineer Builds 7 iOS Apps Solo, Hits $6.2K MRR — jdluk87 · 2026-10-18