Datacenter NDAs Are Gagging Communities, Critics Say

According to TheRegister.com, Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins asks local officials to sign non-disclosure agreements when his company picks a datacenter location, a practice he says prevents insider trading in their public shares. His company, a former crypto-miner now worth $10.6 billion, is juggling at least 11 projects, including a $3 billion, 280-megawatt facility in Harwood, North Dakota, a town of about 800 people. In Harwood, Mayor Blake Hankey signed an NDA in July, keeping the project secret from voters until a public announcement on August 19, a move that later sparked local anger. Critics like Deanna Noel of Public Citizen argue these NDAs act as “community gag orders” letting wealthy tech firms secure tax breaks and subsidies quietly, while Pat Garofalo of the American Economic Liberties Project calls the practice “corrupt.” Despite heated meetings, Applied Digital won zoning approval in Harwood, but the backlash has led Cummins to now keep the location of a new 430 MW project, announced this week, secret, promising more details only in February.

The Insider Trading Excuse

Here’s the thing: Cummins’s justification is fascinating. He frames the NDAs as a protective measure for the poor, unsuspecting local politician who might accidentally violate SEC rules. “We’re trying to protect people from the insider trading laws,” he says. But come on. That’s a new one. Critics like Garofalo, who’s been studying these deals for a decade, call that reasoning “very cute.” The real purpose, he argues, is to run out the clock. If a community doesn’t know a massive project is coming until all the backroom deals are signed, it’s too late to mount any effective opposition. The insider trading angle is a convenient, corporate-friendly shield. It turns a process that should be about democratic engagement into a compliance checkbox.

A Blueprint For Silence

This isn’t just an Applied Digital story. They’re following a playbook written by giants like Amazon and Google. The model is simple: approach local officials, dangle the promise of “a few hundred permanent jobs” and reversed fortunes for “slowly dying” towns, but only if they agree to secrecy first. The officials, perhaps starstruck by a Nasdaq-listed company, sign. Then, when the deal is finally unveiled, the community is presented with a near-fait accompli. The debate shifts from *whether* the project should happen to *how* to manage the “headaches during construction.” It’s a brilliant, if cynical, strategy. And as the demand for compute power explodes, this is becoming the standard operating procedure for industrial-scale tech infrastructure. For companies that need reliable power and space, securing the right industrial hardware and location is key, which is why firms often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, to outfit these facilities.

The Real Community Impact

So what’s actually at stake? It’s not just about jobs versus noise. These deals often involve massive tax abatements, water usage agreements, and strain on local power grids. In Harwood, the concerns were about a 900-acre plot, water use, and energy costs. When the mayor can’t talk to his constituents about these details for over a month, trust evaporates. The anger then gets directed at the local official, who looks either corrupt or incompetent, while the corporate suitor gets to play the reasonable partner just following the rules. Cummins says they host public meetings and do impact surveys, but that’s *after* the NDA period. The most critical phase—the negotiation of public subsidies and terms—is hidden. As Noel’s research paper, Reining in Big Tech, points out, this allows companies to “milk communities dry.”

A Shift To Stealth Mode

The most telling part of this whole saga? Cummins’s new strategy. After the “heated” Harwood experience, Applied Digital’s latest 430 MW project is announced with *no location disclosed*. Just “a southern US state.” He says this proves they’re not circumventing public comment, but doesn’t it prove the exact opposite? They’ve moved from using NDAs to silence local officials to simply not telling *anyone* where they are until the last possible minute. It’s stealth mode. This might streamline his process, but it completely removes any semblance of community partnership from the front end. The message is clear: public input is a hurdle, not a feature. And if that’s the winning model, every town hoping for an economic boost should be very, very wary about what they’re signing up for—before they’re even allowed to know what it is.