European cloud firm Nebius is planning a large data center development outside Kansas City, Missouri.

According to the city of Independence, Nebius is planning a 2.5 million sq ft (232,255 sqm) campus in the existing Eastgate Commerce Center, off Little Blue Parkway and Missouri Highway 78 in Jackson County. Up to ten buildings could be developed on 400 acres. Nebius will use a closed-loop cooling system.

“Nebius is moving fast to bring capacity online globally, and as part of this we are exploring building a state-of-the-art AI factory in Independence. While we’re still evaluating the site, Independence is a prime location, and we look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the City and community on advancing the project,” a Nebius spokesperson told KSHB.

“We see potential for Independence to play an important role in the AI age. Community engagement, and efficient and sustainable data-center design are important for us – we know it’s a privilege to build and operate in communities and want our work to be a partnership that can bring widespread benefits.”

Nebius closed on a deal to acquire 398 acres in the commerce center from NorthPoint Development in early December.

This project will require at least 800MW, according to the city, which will be supplied by a new, privately financed facility developed by Independence Power Partners (IPP) at the retired Blue Valley Power Plant site. The power plant will be built in phases, with the first 250MW phase completed by October 2027. An expansion up to approximately 1.1GW of capacity would be completed by December 2029.

Construction is anticipated to start this year, and the first phase of the campus could launch in 2028.

Nasdaq-listed Nebius is a cloud provider focused on AI workloads. The firm was spun out from Yandex in 2024, offering access to GPUs across its presence in the US, the Middle East, and Europe.

As well as owning a data center in Mäntsälä, Finland, the company is currently leasing or set to lease capacity in the UK (London, in an Ark DC facility), France (France, Equinix), Israel (multiple locations, Mega Or), Iceland (Keflavik, Verne), and the US in New Jersey (Vineland, DataOne) and Missouri (Kansas City, Patmos).

Nebius’ other location in Kansas City is located in the former Kansas City Star printing press, some 20 miles (32.1km) west of the new site. US hosting firm Patmos announced plans to repurpose the vacant facility at 1601 McGee Street into a 40MW data center in 2024.

Launched in 1965, Blue Valley Power Plant was retired in 2020. It featured a 65MW coal plant closed in 2015, and a 65MW natural gas turbine retired in 2020. News that the site could be restarted to provide energy for a data center surfaced earlier this month.