Colossus

Timeline from the record

Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.

1. September 11, 2026

   Coverage
   xAI has quietly built a massive battery at its Memphis data center hub · Canary Media
2. September 2024

   Operating
   Phase 1 online with ~100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs; later expanded with H200s Source: Reuters
3. June 2024

   Under construction
   Construction began; completed in approximately 122 days Source: Wikipedia

Opposition and litigation at this site

Yes. Colossus in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee is or has been the subject of litigation over its siting, permitting, or operation. The NAACP (with SELC and Earthjustice) sued xAI over roughly 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines; the county permitted only 15, and the NAACP/SELC appeal to the Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board stays it.

How the community has taken it

Reception is a sourced signal, not an editorial judgment: in litigation means the facility is or has been the subject of a lawsuit related to its siting, permitting, or operation.

The NAACP (with SELC and Earthjustice) sued xAI over roughly 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines; the county permitted only 15, and the NAACP/SELC appeal to the Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board stays it. The permit drew 1,700+ public comments, most opposed, and South Memphis (Boxtown) residents already face elevated asthma and cancer rates. xAI did not pursue a Shelby County EDGE PILOT tax abatement; no public subsidy is on record.

Source: CNBC

Power and water

About 35 on-site natural-gas turbines (a combined 422 MW per SELC and aerial imagery) supplement a 150 MW grid substation and Tesla Megapack storage. The Shelby County Health Department permitted only 15 turbines; an SELC/NAACP appeal stays that permit. xAI said the Phase-I temporary turbines would be demobilized after grid connection, but 2025 aerial imagery shows 35 on site.

The open cooling loop's design draw is roughly 3 MGD from the Memphis Sands aquifer via MLGW (xAI engineer, per Governing), though Protect Our Aquifer reported a lower early-operational actual of ~0.8 MGD (~812,000 gal/day) in early 2025 as the site was still ramping. xAI broke ground in Oct 2025 on an $80M greywater-recycling plant at the T.E. Maxson wastewater facility (targeting ~10 MGD of treated wastewater); construction was later paused.

People and entities in the record

• Elon Musk · executive via xAI

  Runs xAI, the company operating this facility; CNBC, reporting the Shelby County turbine-permit appeal, describes "xAI, which is run by Elon Musk" as having set up in Memphis in 2024.

  Source

Notes on the record

Subsidies checked 2026-09-09: confirmed absence. Unlike the usual Memphis path, xAI did not obtain a PILOT or any formally granted incentive for the Memphis site, so the subsidies field is deliberately left empty rather than unknown. The site is instead expected to pay more than $30 million in combined Memphis and Shelby County property taxes. CORRECTION: energy.notes currently states 'an SELC/NAACP appeal stays that permit' -- this is stale. The Memphis and Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board voted 6-1 on 2025-12-15 to dismiss the NAACP/Young, Gifted & Green appeal of Air Permit No. 01156-01PC as moot, ending the appeal-triggered stay. Recommend energy.notes be updated to reflect that the appeal was dismissed (not that it currently stays anything), and that community.notes (currently 'an SELC/NAACP appeal to the Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board stays it') be updated the same way. Separately, a 2026-04-14 federal Clean Air Act suit (NAACP v. X.AI Corp. and MZX Tech LLC, No. 3:26-cv-00074, N.D. Miss.) is ongoing, but its claims target xAI's Southaven, MS 'Colossus Gas Plant' (MZX Tech LLC, 2875 Stanton Road South) -- a different facility -- not this Memphis site or CTC Property LLC, which is not a named defendant; it cites this site's turbine history only as background evidence of a pattern. Full primary-source detail (including that the permit covers 15 turbines permanently, not 35) is now captured in the companion new-facility record xai-colossus-1-turbines-memphis-tn. CORRECTION (sourcing quality, not fact): sources[0] and sources[5] both cite en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer), an aggregator-tier source, for this site of all sites. sources[0] is the sourceIndex behind statusHistory[0] ('Construction began; completed in approximately 122 days', dated 2024-06). Primary/official and named-quote replacements found and fetched this run: (1) NVIDIA's own newsroom press release (2024-10-28, official/primary) states Colossus was 'built by xAI and NVIDIA in just 122 days, instead of the typical timeframe' and comprises '100,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in Memphis, Tennessee'; (2) Fortune (2025-03-14) quotes Super Micro CEO Charles Liang on the record: 'It took Elon and Super Micro only 122 days to finish,' adding it would usually take a year or longer. Per instructions, I have NOT attempted to delete or reorder the existing Wikipedia citations myself -- these two sources are offered as additions for the maintainer to use when manually reordering/replacing sources[0] and sources[5].

Other sites within 30 miles

Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.

• Colossus 2 (Whitehaven) · Memphis · xAI4 mi · Operating
• Minihard · Memphis · xAI4 mi · Under construction
• MACROHARDRR (xAI Southaven Data Center III) · Southaven · xAI5 mi · Operating
• 5C MEM01 Memphis (former Fred's headquarters) · Memphis · 5C Data Centers5 mi · Proposed · 15 MW
• xAI Southaven · Southaven · xAI5 mi · Operating · 2 GW · In litigation
• Neural Nexus Innovation District · Memphis · Legacy Power Capital6 mi · Proposed · Mixed reception
• Google West Memphis Data Center Campus · West Memphis · Google11 mi · Under construction · Supported
• The STEM Practice Sycamore View AI Data Center · Memphis · Golden Acquisitions / The STEM Practice11 mi · Under construction

Questions people ask about this site