A nationwide rush to build data centers — the massive computer banks powering the current technological and artificial intelligence boom — could soon reach Nodaway County.
Conversations surrounding a possible development in southern Nodaway County began last year, but few details have been made public.
Representatives from the Chicago-based company ReLoad met with the Nodaway County Commissioners on Dec. 16, 2025, to discuss a potential project. The company has not released further details; According to its website, the company “sites, designs and permits gigawatt-scale datacenter campuses.”
Local government and economic development officials say ReLoad is just one of multiple developers interested in building in the region. Data center development has taken off in recent years to meet the demands of the current technological and artificial intelligence boom. Projects are increasingly coming to rural areas, where land and power, which data centers rely on, can be accessed more easily.
Executive Director of the Nodaway County Economic Development Corporation, Josh McKim, helped arrange the December meeting between ReLoad and the commissioners, but he declined to discuss any specific projects or companies the NCED is working with.
From an economic development perspective, McKim says these facilities present an opportunity. A few years ago, data centers were typically small and required few employees, “but once you get into the bigger ones there is some significant job creation, and we’ve been told typically 150-200 jobs for very large ones.”
The project proposed by ReLoad would qualify as large. According to the Nodaway County Commissioners it would be a $4 billion investment and could entail multiple buildings around 1 million square feet a piece. A typical Walmart Supercenter is around 180 thousand square feet.
Data centers elsewhere in Missouri have faced local opposition. Concerned residents cite impacts from enormous energy demands, to noise, to water usage.
“That’s one of the things we were worried when we started looking at it,” McKim said. “What about water? How in the world are we going to do water? So, we’ve done some research and worked with folks to understand there are potential solutions.”
Those efforts include recycling water and using non-potable water. Many data centers, McKim said, are also generating their own electricity to reduce strain on the grid.
Evergy, Inc. is planning to build a 440-megawatt power plant 8 miles south of Maryville on U.S. Highway 71, but the company says the project is intended to meet existing demand rather than serve new customers.
Despite efforts to mitigate the impacts, Commissioner Chris Burns says he expects the topic will be divisive.
“People are divided just like they are on everything else: you’re either 100% for it or 100% against it.”
“One thing I’ll say about our position [as commissioners,]” Burns added, “is we don’t have the control that people think we have when a project comes into our area like this.”
“If the landowners choose to sell their land or lease their land for that purpose, without zoning, we don’t have a lot of control over that.”
Commissioners anticipate public forums if projects move forward, and say they aspire towards transparency. But, they said, development-industry practices, including the use of non-disclosure agreements with area landowners and project stakeholders, make it difficult to connect the public with information.
McKim said discretion is common in the business community and is respected by the NCED, but he intends to share further details as soon as developers are ready.
ReLoad did not respond to request for comment on this story.
