When talking about the giants dominating the AI game, people tend to consider OpenAI, the massive private company behind ChatGPT, or else Google’s Gemini, or perhaps Microsoft’s Copilot. In other words, no one really thinks about Elon Musk as an AI leader.
Evidently, that’s a perception he’s hoping to change with the construction of an enormous computing complex in Memphis, Tennessee, meant to match the 114-acre one already in operation.
Reporting on Musk’s AI ambitions, the Wall Street Journal revealed over the weekend that Musk is getting close to finishing construction on a massive facility, which he says will sport over 500,000 AI chips. Creatively dubbed “Colossus 2” after its elder sibling across the dirt road, sources familiar with the project told the WSJ that the data center needs roughly 300,000 more Nvidia chips before the project is officially wrapped.
Those alone are going to cost “at least” $18 billion, not to mention the cost of the likely hundreds of thousands of chips already in place, or the gigantic building needed to house them all.
The news follows the rapid construction of the first Colossus megasite, which Musk powered with noxious portable methane generators in order to bypass local laws and open the doors as quickly as possible. The tech tycoon has since purchased a nearby power plant to satisfy the data center’s immense energy needs — something he’ll need plenty of to take Colossus 2 online.
“In one year, xAI has become the second largest taxpayer in the city and county after FedEx,” Bill Dunavant III, a member of the Memphis chamber of commerce told the WSJ.
Dunavant didn’t mention that it’s also slated to become one of the city’s top polluters, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which noted that nearby residents are struggling with rolling blackouts, skyrocketing utility bills, and even more toxic smog than there already was.
“People target this area because they think that we’re the path of least resistance,” KeShaun Pearson, director of the activist group Memphis Community Against Pollution told NRDC. “They think this area is a sacrifice zone and that people here don’t matter. But they’re dying. They’ve been dying.”
Unfortunately for them, “this is just the beginning,” as the Colossus website ominously foretells. “We were told it would take 24 months to build. So we took the project into our own hands, questioned everything, removed whatever was unnecessary, and accomplished our goal in four months.”
The message is crystal clear: while the local residents are forced to suffer the effects of Musk’s ego, the project will continue at a breakneck pace, consequences be damned. After all, their health and wellness is a small price to pay if it means catching up to Musk’s fellow billionaires in the AI race.
More on Musk: Tesla and xAI Staff Are Fleeing as Musk Becomes Increasingly Erratic
