Mar 19, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Microsoft has pledged to stop requiring local governments to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for its data center projects.
In a blog post, the company said this commitment builds on its “Community-First AI Infrastructure Plan,” which promises to prevent data centers from raising electricity costs, minimize water use and replenish more than is consumed, while supporting local jobs, taxes, and AI training investments.
Microsoft has pledged to stop requiring local governments to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for its data center projects.
In a blog post, the company said this commitment builds on its “Community-First AI Infrastructure Plan,” which promises to prevent data centers from raising electricity costs, minimize water use and replenish more than is consumed, while supporting local jobs, taxes, and AI training investments.
Microsoft stated that it previously used NDAs "during early stages of data center development to help protect sensitive commercial information, address early security considerations, and ensure we can comply with local regulatory and permitting processes.
Microsoft is now reviewing existing NDAs with local governments and plans to terminate them. In “limited circumstances,” the company may still share confidential trade secrets or competitively sensitive information about its data centers, while continuing to protect that information from public records.
In a post to LinkedIn, Microsoft's corporate vice president and general counsel of infrastructure legal affairs, Rima Alaily, said: "Our neighbors deserve to know when we are coming to their community. They deserve transparency about what we are building and why. This shift is about strengthening public trust, enabling better dialogue, and ensuring that our growth is matched by meaningful engagement."
In January 2026, Microsoft revealed that it had stood up approximately 1GW of data center capacity in the last three months alone. With that, the company also noted a record high quarterly capex of $37.5 billion, of which two-thirds went to "short-lived assets" like GPUs and CPUs, and data center leases accounted for $6.7bn. While that quarter represented sequential growth of capex, the company has said it does not expect this trend to continue "due to a normal variability from cloud infrastructure build-outs."
