xAI, the artificial intelligence startup founded by Elon Musk, told city and county planners in Memphis last week that it plans to build a solar farm next to the Colossus Data Center, one of the world’s largest facilities for training AI models.
The project will occupy 88 acres to the west and south of the data center. Currently, 136 acres of vacant land adjacent to the site is owned by the developer who also owns the Colossus site. Given the proposed scale, the solar farm would likely produce about 30 megawatts of electricity, which would only be about 10% of the data center’s estimated power usage.
According to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), XAI is accused of operating more than 400 megawatts of natural gas turbines without permits. The legal organization, which works with the NAACP, says xAI operates at least 35 turbines that can emit more than 2,000 tons of NOX pollution (nitrogen oxide emissions that cause smog and respiratory illnesses) annually.
The turbines have sparked fierce opposition from residents of nearby Box Town. Boxtown is a majority-Black community, and researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville found that peak nitrogen dioxide concentration levels increased by 79% in the area immediately surrounding the data center after xAI went live. Community activists have reported an increase in asthma attacks and respiratory illnesses since the facility opened.
AI has said it will use the turbines until it can secure additional power, but local authorities have given xAI permission to operate 15 turbines until January 2027.
xAI announced in September that it would build a 100-megawatt solar farm nearby, which would be combined with a 100-megawatt grid-scale battery to provide a 24/7 power source.
Seven States Power Company, the developer of the solar farm, was awarded $439 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, although the company did not disclose the total cost of the project. Of that amount, $414 million is interest-free financing.
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This federal award is notable given that many clean energy subsidies and loans were discontinued by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy under the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, xAI added a gas turbine in Mississippi to power its Colossus 2 data center. So far, 59 of them have been installed on site, but the company believes 18 of them are temporary, meaning regulators are not tracking their contamination.
