The center is named in honor of David Payne, a campus engineering school alumnus, who made a $50-million gift—the largest in the school’s history—to support academic programs and students, advance faculty research and improve facilities, including a renovation of Naka Hall, home to the electrical engineering and computer science departments.

Payne is chair of PayneCrest Electric in St. Louis, an electrical contracting company he has run since 1985 and expanded to serve U.S. commercial and industrial customers.

Other firms involved in the project include PGAV Architects as architect of record and lab planner, LMN Architects as associate architect for design, Horner & Shifrin, providing MEP, SK Design Group as civil engineer, Walter P Moore as structural engineer, and minority-owned FSC serving as building code and life safety consultants. 

Areas of focus at the center are planned to include advanced energy materials, artificial intelligence, grid security, power generation storage and nuclear energy. 

Researchers in each of these areas will work in the planned four-level center, which is intended as a collaborative workspace for the university's Quantum Innovation Center, the Mizzou AI Education, Research and Infrastructure Center and its Cybersecurity Center.

The university says center development is fueled by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and global energy demand, which it says is projected to double in the next 25 years.

“Meeting that demand will require more than producing additional power,” the university said. “Aging infrastructure, cybersecurity threats, extreme weather and changing energy loads are creating new challenges for how energy is generated, stored, secured and delivered.”

At the center, “researchers will tackle energy challenges from production to performance, with an initial focus on high-impact areas such as advanced energy materials, artificial intelligence and grid security. The work will draw on university strengths in nuclear energy, materials science and cybersecurity, it adds. 

In addition, experts in public policy, agriculture, business and other fields will explore how new technologies can move from discovery to practical use, the university says.

"By combining expertise across those disciplines, [the school] is creating an energy research ecosystem that can approach challenges from every angle—from discovering new materials and strengthening the power grid to developing policies and preparing the workforce needed to put new technologies into practice," said Cooper Drury, dean of university College of Arts and Science, in a news release. 

The center is planned as a partnership among the College of Engineering, College of Arts and Science and College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, with expertise also drawn from the School of Law, the Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business and the Missouri School of Journalism.