Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has built and opened what will allegedly soon be the world’s largest supercomputer structure in the world. The facility is located in Memphis, Tenn, to the surprise of the City Council. The goal of this computer is allegedly to “understand the universe” and “accelerate human scientific discovery,” but for now it’s being used to power Twitter’s chatbot Grok, which burns electricity and water to produce terrible images of Mickey Mouse in a Nazi uniform.
The facility occupies 217 acres of land, with the potential to add 580 more acres in the coming years. The main building is nearly a million square feet, and fully air conditioned. Right now the facility is running on power from 18 portable methane gas generators, as it requires significant electricity demand. NPR estimates that these generators are robust enough to supply power to 50,000 homes, and will potentially emit 130 tons of nitrogen oxides into the local air. EPA and county Health Department reports indicate xAI does not have permits for these turbine generators.
This facility is putting unprecedented strain on the city’s power grid, already consuming at a rate of 50 megawatts, and xAI has requested access to 100 further megawatts. The facility also requires around one million gallons of water per day to cool its servers.