When a massive, secretive data center project attempted to build in St. Charles last year, the experience was painful for the area, said state Representative Colin Wellenkamp, who represents St. Charles city.
"It was a master class in what not to do if you want to approach a community," Wellenkamp said Tuesday. "It was very opaque. It was, hide the ball. I think the industry learned from that experience. My city, myself, my family, didn't like the lack of transparency."
Now, he's unveiling a new guide for Missouri communities that are being approached by prospective large data centers along with his colleagues in the Missouri House Future Caucus, which is a legislative group that works on emerging issues like disaster resilience and the artificial intelligence economy.
The AI Infrastructure Community Evaluation Framework is a worksheet for local leaders to ensure they're asking developers the right questions. It covers things such as how a proposal should be formatted, how resources like water will be protected and how to make sure the local community still benefits after tax incentives and infrastructure costs.
While Wellenkamp said he supports the city's decision to ban data center development, other communities around the state are not in the same place. Leaders are open to data centers, but need help getting it right, he said.
"Many of them came to us feeling besieged and disadvantaged and felt like they were very much getting into an opaque process that they were not prepared for," Wellenkamp said.
In some cases, a huge data center development could bring a big influx in tax dollars to a community, said Representative Scott Miller of St. Charles County. He said the new guide for communities tried to take a neutral approach to vetting the projects.
"There's a lot of emotion that flies around about these data centers," Miller said. "At the end of the day, they're just industrial developments. And industrial developments can do good things, and industrial developments can do bad things."
The members of the future caucus are also planning to introduce legislation related to data centers in Missouri's next legislative session.
Wellenkamp said he will be re-introducing a bill he tried to pass last year that would increase transparency around data center projects by requiring them to seek permits from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that would make their water and electricity use public records.
The other members of the caucus also said they are also working on bills that would make a human or company accountable for the actions of artificial intelligence and another bill that would require humans to oversee AI use in health-care settings.
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