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Why a Memphis Community Is Fighting Elon Musk’s Supercomputer

Residents say Mr. Musk’s data center for artificial intelligence is compounding their pollution burden and adding stress on the local electrical grid.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is building what he says will be the world’s largest supercomputer. Its electricity needs will rival those of 100,000 homes.

The supercomputer’s neighbors in southwest Memphis have a problem with that.

The project, part of Mr. Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence business, sits in an old manufacturing plant on more than 550 acres. Before beginning operations there in July, xAI rolled in flatbed trucks loaded with almost 20 mobile power plants, fueled by natural gas, to help meet its electricity demands.

Residents of the heavily industrial community — already home to an oil refinery, a steel mill and chemical plants — see no upside. They contend that Mr. Musk’s project has made pollution worse in an area already enveloped in smog.

“We’re getting more and more days a year where it is unhealthy for us to go outside,” said KeShaun Pearson, president of Memphis Community Against Pollution and a lifelong resident of the area near the xAI site.

The xAI supercomputer center in Memphis is being built at the site of a former appliance factory.Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times
The center is to be used to train artificial intelligence models on thousands of powerful computer servers.Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times

So far, xAI is using the Memphis facility to develop its artificial intelligence models on a network of thousands of high-powered computer servers. Some of its models are trained on data from Mr. Musk’s social media platform, X.

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Source: Elections - nytimes.com


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