Data center and cloud firm Crusoe could build an 800,000 sq ft (74,320 sqm) data center in outside St. Louis in Callaway County, Missouri.

Speaking to local news, Western District Commissioner Christopher Scott said Crusoe would build a 14-acre data center somewhere in the northern part of the county, but he did not provide an exact location.

Scott said the development would be a private land transaction and not require county or public approval.

“It’s big, but they’re building it on their own land. Nobody can stop that,” he added.

While not confirmed, Scott’s comments imply that the project could be built on unincorporated land, essentially land that is not governed by a municipality.

Some developers are showing interest in these land parcels, as they allow construction to proceed at a faster pace due to reduced regulatory friction, local approvals, rezoning laws, and land-use reviews.

These areas are generally quite rural and are administered directly by the county. The drawback is that it will be further from the power grid and water supply, and the developer will likely need to spend money on the infrastructure connections or localized supplies.

Contrary to Scott’s comments, developers that build on unincorporated land still have to face approvals from local water authorities, county commissions, and planning boards before they can build. However, regulations around land use and zoning on unincorporated land tend to be more permissive.

Requests have been made for the data center to connect to the Callaway 2 Water District and Callaway Electric Co-Op, according to Scott.

More than 150 residents gathered on Monday night at an event hosted by the Missouri Protest Organization to discuss the plans.

According to local news reports, most of the conversation revolved around water use. The proposed data center could use an estimated 1.4 million gallons of water per year for cooling.

Scott said that a closed-loop system is being considered for the data center and pointed out that three golf courses in the county each use up to 50 million gallons of water per year.

For its part, the Missouri Protest Organization, which says it uses organized, informed, and peaceful protest to create “real pressure for real change,” has said that large AI data centers can consume up to five million gallons of water per day. The group claims this usage will come from municipal drinking water reserves.

“If they are to be built, companies must be held responsible and required to adhere to the most sustainable practices,” the group said in a post on social media.

This isn’t Crusoe’s first planned construction in Missouri. Another site in Warrenton, west of St. Louis, has been planned.

Crusoe, launched in 2018 as a cryptomining business, has pivoted to development of data centers offering AI cloud services. The company divested its crypto operations in March 2025.

The company is part of OpenAI’s Stargate project, bringing online the first phase of its 1.2GW campus in Abilene, Texas, in September 2025.

Crusoe has plans for a 1.8GW campus in Wyoming, as well as natural gas-powered data centers in Alberta, Canada.

It has also partnered with Digital Realty and Equinix in the US and atNorth in Iceland and has plans to lease a data center from Polar in Norway for its cloud unit. The company operates four cloud regions across the US and Europe.