While many gatherings around data centers have been protests featuring angry residents shouting at public officials, one in Rolla last week had a much more positive view of them.
More than 200 invited business, academic and government leaders crowded into a meeting room at the Protoplex, an advanced manufacturing facility on the campus of Missouri University of Science and Technology, to talk about artificial intelligence and data centers, while another 400 people watched the June 18 event online.
"We can build data centers responsibly, and I emphasize responsibly," Missouri S&T Chancellor Mo Dehghani said during his opening remarks.
The all-day forum focused on the presence of artificial intelligence, its need to expand, and the inevitability of more data centers around the world to support that level of computing power.
It also came with an acknowledgment of the concerns they bring with them.
"These computing centers require energy, land, water, equipment, skilled workers, materials, infrastructure and careful planning," Dehghani said.
Dehghani wants Missouri and S&T to be a major part of the careful planning that he said can overcome those concerns and let the state welcome data centers in ways that embrace the technology but also protect resources and people.
Forum speakers also warned that communities that reject data centers outright will be missing out on jobs, high-tech investment and economic development that can be transformational for a community.
"Communities are competing for these data centers. I believe that communities that move fast will benefit from these deals, and those who wait, won't," said Amaury Lendasse, chair of S&T's information science and technology department.
The promise of what data centers can provide doesn't sit well with opponents. About three dozen protesters from Rolla and the surrounding area set up outside the forum at S&T, waving signs and trying to get participants' attention from behind barricades that kept them away from the building's entrance.
"We have to protect our water, our air, our land, our children's health and future," said Suzanne Hume, a Springfield resident with the environmental justice group CleanEarth4Kids. "People are very against data centers for important reasons."
A Gallup poll in March showed 71% of Americans oppose building data centers in their communities. Their concerns include how massive data centers' use of power and water will increase rates for consumers, and what the large development's emissions will do to air and water quality.
Other concerns include how some of the work on data centers is being done in secret and foisted on city councils and county boards at the last minute.
"It's kept away from the public about what is actually going on, so this process of many data centers popping up throughout Missouri, there is no transparency," Hume said.
The gathering in Rolla was titled the "Governor's Forum on Artificial Intelligence and Data Centers," and Gov. Mike Kehoe was briefly in attendance and spoke for 15 minutes.
He said the discussion should not be whether or not Missouri welcomes data centers, but rather how.
"Because in Missouri, we do not have to choose between economic growth and common sense, we can and we will do both," he said.
Kehoe acknowledged the concerns but said many of them are fueled by "misinformation campaigns."
Kehoe also said there are always costs for economic growth.
"Your (power) rates are going up. Whether we have data centers, or a General Motors plant, or a widget manufacturer, or anything," Kehoe said. "It's supply and demand."
Kehoe points to legislation passed last year and rules put in place by the Public Service Commission as protection for consumers to keep those increases in check, though some consumer advocacy groups and opponents of data centers say they don't go far enough.
Local governments are increasingly wary of data centers and the speed in which they are attempting to locate in Missouri. The approval of a development in Festus led to four members losing reelection bids and recall petitions filed against the mayor and three council members.
The St. Charles City Council passed a measure that effectively prohibits data centers in the city.
Even in Rolla, the home of the decidedly pro-data center event, the city council voted unanimously to ask staff to draft a data center moratorium for consideration.
Councilman Andrew Behrendt said there are too many questions about the projects for the city to be caught off guard.
"This is the kind of thing where it can come very quickly, and that a city council might not be able to do very much once it's at the threshold," he said.
That move would be preemptive, as city staff members said they have not had any developers approach them about a data center — at least, not yet.
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