JEFFERSON CITY — A St. Louis leader warned that communities without large data centers may not be viable in the future while speaking at a summit on Missouri's energy future on Thursday.
Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Ron Kitchens said communities with data centers are already pulling population from cities that don't have them.
"This is the railroad coming and deciding to come through some communities, and other communities that they don't go through cease to exist," Kitchens said. "This is Route 66 when the interstates came in and those communities and those businesses died because they weren't on the trade routes. Hyperscale data centers are the same exact opportunity for communities."
Data centers dominated the conversation through the day as politicians, utility executives and other stakeholders gathered in Jefferson City to discuss infrastructure and changes in the state that could affect utilities. The summit is hosted by Missouri's Public Service Commission, which regulates monopoly utilities.
In slideshow after slideshow, speakers displayed charts showing how massive data centers have reworked Missouri's landscape. They pointed to spiking demand for electricity, increasing state economic growth and in Montgomery County, the home of multiple new hyperscale projects, increasing local tax revenue.
This was the third Power MO summit, and speakers largely struck a celebratory tone as they reflected on how much had changed since they launched the annual meetings.
"Today, two years later, we've made significant progress securing our energy future and creating a more prosperous state," said Missouri Public Service Commission Chair Kayla Hahn.
State leaders celebrated multiple new hyperscale data center projects that began work this year, with Amazon and Google centers in Montgomery County and Nebius in Independence.
"Over the course of 45 days, we announced three data centers and over $40 billion into the state," said Michelle Hataway, Missouri Department of Economic development director. "That's huge … that is unbelievable, life-changing opportunities for these communities."
But with unprecedented growth, conference speakers said the state's existing infrastructure needs major updates.
"We're at a pivotal moment with our infrastructure," said Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe. "It's aging while our communities and industries are demanding more from it."
Hahn said electric growth is skyrocketing after it had been flat for 15 years.
"We haven't needed to plan significant new generation, transmission, for the last 15 years," Hahn said. "So this is a significantly different environment that we're operating in than we had in the past."
Hahn said Missouri will have to build new power plants to meet that skyrocketing growth. Multiple speakers said generating electricity from a diversity of sources would be the most reliable and affordable.
"It's important to have an all of the above portfolio in energy right now," Kehoe said. "If you want to be a competitive state, it can't just be one thing or the other."
Nuclear power in particular, Kehoe said, could be key.
Ameren Missouri recently released a new long-range plan for power plants that doubled the amount of new power it planned to generate, with more reliance on natural gas power plants than previous plans.
"The fact of the matter is we have to build, and we're gonna have to build fast," said Rob Dixon, vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs at Ameren Missouri.
Kehoe acknowledged the opposition to many data center projects, including the hyperscale builds along Highway 70 in Montgomery County. He said each project needs to be right for the community it tries to build in.
And Kehoe added there is a limit to how many projects will realistically move to Missouri.
"At the end of the day, these are not going to be QuikTrips, there are not going to be one of these on every corner," Kehoe said. "Missouri might get a look at a dozen or so. So it's a limited conversation, but it's something that will be well warranted."
Kehoe also said he expects the state legislature to put more guardrails around data centers in the upcoming Missouri legislative session.
Copyright 2026 St. Louis Public Radio