OpenAI wants people to stop calling its data centres data centres. The company’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, told Axios that OpenAI is preparing a public relations campaign for after Tuesday’s midterm elections, and among its proposals is rebranding its large AI facilities as “AI compute campuses”.

The push comes as data centres face mounting public opposition, with communities pressing back on the power and water demands of the server farms that train and run AI models. A company spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that OpenAI wants the public to use “compute campuses” instead, pointing to the scale of the sites and the benefits they bring to the communities around them.

Lehane framed the exercise as part of a wider effort to shape how AI is discussed in American politics. He described the midterms, which analysts expect could hand Democrats control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, as “a bit of a movie trailer for what you’re going to see in 2028,” when he expects AI to be “the issue” in the presidential election.

The naming change is one of several ideas Lehane set out. Others include developing AI “speed limits”, finding ways to help people see AI as empowering them in their daily lives and pushing the US to take a role in developing global standards.

Lehane called the debate around data centres, which has pushed Amazon and Microsoft to say they will no longer use non-disclosure agreements in their negotiations with local governments, “good and healthy”.

“Communities should hold companies responsible and accountable so they really and truly get a transformative benefit from these projects,” he said.

OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. The label shift follows a run of moves from the company that reshape how its systems are built and described, including a decision last month to stop training its AI models on the live internet, which it attributed to “significant risks”. Whether “compute campuses” sticks beyond marketing materials will become clearer if the term starts appearing in zoning filings and federal lobbying disclosures once the post-election campaign rolls out.