OpenAI Wants Uncle Sam to Help Build the Future of AI
OpenAI isn’t just training smarter models; it’s now lobbying for a smarter tax code.
In a letter to the White House’s science and tech office, the company asked the US government to lend a hand (and a few tax breaks) in building the enormous data centres that will fuel the next era of artificial intelligence.
The pitch, signed by chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane, calls on Washington to expand the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC), a 35% tax incentive tucked into the Chips Act, so it covers AI servers, data centres and power-grid hardware.
The idea is simple: make it cheaper to build the infrastructure, and the private capital will flow faster. Lehane said such a move would “lower the effective cost of capital” and help “unlock private investment” in the AI supply chain.
OpenAI also wants the government to cut red tape by speeding up environmental reviews and to stockpile critical materials like copper, aluminium and rare earths needed for AI hardware.
The letter went mostly unnoticed when it was published in late October, until this week when CFO Sarah Friar caused a stir by suggesting Washington should “backstop” OpenAI’s loans.
She later clarified she wasn’t calling for a government guarantee, just policies to ease the path for investors.
The message is clear: OpenAI sees America’s AI boom as a national project — one that might need a little help from taxpayers to keep the lights on in its data centres.
