The artificial intelligence start-up xAI, founded by Elon Musk, told city and county planners in Memphis last week that it wants to build a solar farm next to its Colossus data center — one of the world’s largest centers for training AI models.
The project would sit on 88 acres west and south of the data center. This site is also adjacent to a 136-acre vacant parcel of land owned by the developer who owns the Colossus property. If built to the size being discussed, the solar farm would likely generate about 30 megawatts of electricity, representing only about 10 percent of the data center’s expected power consumption.
Musk’s company has faced criticism for allegedly operating more than 400 megawatts of natural gas turbines without permits, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) said. The legal organization representing the N.A.A.C.P. says that xAI has been operating at least 35 turbines that can produce more than 2,000 tons of NOX pollution annually — nitrogen oxide emissions linked to smog and respiratory problems.
The turbines have also galvanized opposition from residents of the adjacent town, Boxtown, a predominantly Black community where at least one turbine was built on University of Tennessee, Knoxville land, and where U.T. researchers found that maximum nitrogen dioxide levels had increased 79 percent in areas immediately surrounding the data center after xAI started to operate. Local activists have reported spikes in asthma attacks and breathing problems since the facility went online.
The AI company says it plans to run the turbines until it can gain access to more power, but local officials issued a permit allowing xAI to operate 15 of the turbines through January 2027.
xAI said in September that it would construct a 100-megawatt solar farm just down the road, coupled with 100 megawatts of grid-scale batteries to deliver around-the-clock electricity.
The company has not disclosed the project’s full cost, but the solar farm’s developer, Seven States Power Corporation, received $439 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its construction. Of that total, $414 million is an interest-free loan.
That the federal award comes at all is significant; under President Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy have both canceled numerous clean energy grants and loans.
In the meantime, xAI is using gas-fired turbines in Mississippi to power its Colossus 2 data center. So far, 59 of them are on-site, and the company considers 18 of them temporary — pollution from those is not tracked by regulators.
