Amazon is abandoning nondisclosure agreements in negotiations with local governments over data centers, a policy reversal that puts one of the AI buildout’s most contentious practices under fresh scrutiny.¹

The change follows a similar decision by Microsoft earlier this year, suggesting that the industry has begun to recognize that confidential bargaining with public authorities carries a political cost. For Amazon, the shift arrives as data centers become a flashpoint in towns and cities asked to accommodate the power-hungry infrastructure behind the AI boom.²

The pressure did not emerge overnight. Secrecy around development agreements has helped fuel local resistance, with opposition contributing to hundreds of proposed and enacted moratoriums stretching from New York to San Francisco. Residents and critics have challenged not simply the facilities themselves, but the limited ability of communities to examine the terms under which they are approved.¹

Amazon’s decision offers an answer to that complaint: negotiations should no longer be shielded by NDAs. Microsoft’s earlier move points to the same conclusion — that closed-door dealmaking is becoming harder to defend when public resources, land use and local consequences are at stake.²

But the open question is whether ending NDAs will materially change how deals get done. Disclosure can reveal terms; it does not automatically give communities more leverage over them. The industry’s transparency pivot may therefore ease one source of distrust while leaving the broader fight over accountability, costs and consent very much alive.