OpenAI Asks U.S. to Expand Tax Credits for AI Data Center Buildout

OpenAI is calling on the federal government to broaden a key tax incentive to support its large-scale data center expansion efforts. In a letter sent in late October to Michael Kratsios, the White House’s Director of Science and Technology Policy, the company urged the administration to expand eligibility for the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC) to include AI infrastructure.

The AMIC currently offers a 35 percent tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing under the CHIPS and Science Act. OpenAI wants that benefit extended to cover components essential to building AI data centers. These include power grid infrastructure, servers used for AI workloads, and the centers themselves. The letter, signed by OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane, argues this move would lower capital costs, make early investments less risky, and draw more private capital into the sector.

“Broadening coverage of the AMIC will lower the effective cost of capital, de-risk early investment, and unlock private capital to help alleviate bottlenecks and accelerate the AI build in the U.S.,” Lehane wrote.

The letter also asked the government to take further steps to support AI infrastructure. These include speeding up the permitting and environmental review process and establishing a strategic national reserve of raw materials like copper, aluminum, and processed rare earth minerals. These elements are critical to building and operating large-scale data and compute centers.

While the letter was published on OpenAI’s website on October 27, it drew wider attention this week following public comments by senior leadership at the company. At a Wall Street Journal event on Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said the government should consider backstopping the company’s infrastructure loans. In a LinkedIn post later that day, she retracted the comment, clarifying that OpenAI was not asking for a government guarantee of its infrastructure obligations. “I used the word ‘backstop’ and it muddied the point,” she wrote.

CEO Sam Altman also addressed the topic in a post on the company’s website. He stated that OpenAI does not seek and has never asked for a bailout or financial lifeline. “We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions or otherwise lose in the market,” Altman wrote. He acknowledged past discussions about government loan guarantees, but said those were in the context of broader U.S. investment in semiconductor manufacturing.

Altman also shared updated financial projections. He said OpenAI was on track to end 2025 with an annualized revenue run rate of more than $20 billion. Looking further ahead, he projected the company could reach hundreds of billions in annual revenue by 2030. He also said OpenAI has made $1.4 trillion in capital commitments for data center development through the early 2030s.

The push to widen tax incentives comes as AI companies race to secure infrastructure required to train large-scale models. High-performance servers, access to energy, and raw materials are bottlenecks across the sector. By seeking federal support, OpenAI is betting that public-private alignment will help accelerate deployment at a national scale.

For now, the Biden administration has not publicly responded to OpenAI’s recommendations. It remains unclear whether a future expansion of the AMIC would include the kinds of infrastructure OpenAI proposed. The issue is likely to return in policy discussions as federal industrial policy around AI matures.