Several potential data centers want to make Missouri their future home, but they have mixed reviews by residents.
Many Missourians say they are concerned about rising electric bills, water usage, plus noise and air pollution. Others don’t like change or don’t want to be neighbors with a giant building.
But Springfield-area Congressman Eric Burlison told Missourinet affiliate KZRG in Joplin that he is all in on these data centers coming to the Show Me State.
“The only thing that I can I can think of is that if you are in the solar or wind industry, or if you’re really a foreign actor, that’s the only group that makes sense for them to demonize data centers, because the truth is, this is a national security issue of critical importance. I cannot stress this enough, you do not want your data being housed in China,” he said.
A data center is considering Joplin as a potential site.
“You do not want all of our AI processing happening in countries that hate us,” he said. “This is a critical moment in American history, and we need to get this right and the rhetoric that is anti-data centers, people need to start spreading the proper information so that this negative rhetoric stops.”
Burlison told KZRG that there is a lot of disinformation about data centers.
“When you look at the actual data and you talk to utility companies and you talk to data centers, you talk to people who study this topic that are economists, they will tell you that you absolutely want a data center in your community. And the reason is that they’re paying for your entire infrastructure,” he said.
According to Burlison, data centers reduce peak load on utility companies by throttling usage during high-demand periods, thus lowering overall system costs.
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