SpaceX строит электростанцию для xAI Colossus, но незаконные турбины простоят ещё год

SpaceX is building a new power plant for xAI Colossus data centers, but the existing unauthorized gas turbines will not be decommissioned for at least another year, TechCrunch reports.

Why the turbines ended up banned

Colossus is the supercomputer cluster of Elon Musk's xAI company, located in Memphis, Tennessee. To launch the facility in record time, xAI installed gas turbines to power the data centers without obtaining the necessary air pollutant emission permits. Memphis has historically been among American cities with elevated stress on the air basin, so the installation of illegal emission sources provoked a sharp reaction from local residents and environmental organizations.

Key facts on the situation:

• Unauthorized turbines were installed to power xAI Colossus data centers in Memphis, Tennessee
• SpaceX is building a new power plant — a permanent and legal energy solution for the cluster
• Decommissioning of the existing turbines will not be completed for at least a year, according to TechCrunch
• Both assets — xAI and SpaceX — are controlled by Elon Musk

What SpaceX is building and why

SpaceX is acting as contractor in the construction of a new power plant that is meant to replace the temporary energy solution with legitimate infrastructure. However, the construction timeline is stretching out: according to TechCrunch's reporting, the unauthorized turbines will continue operating for many more months — and in its headline the publication explicitly names the horizon as "another year."

For Musk, the situation presents a dual managerial challenge: xAI faces an acute need for computing power to train Grok models, while SpaceX simultaneously must build energy infrastructure without violating environmental legislation. Until these two vectors converge, Memphis residents are living in a state of environmental uncertainty.

What this means

The xAI Colossus case is becoming a telling example of a systemic contradiction in the AI computing race: companies rush to launch the world's largest clusters, outpacing their own permitting and infrastructure processes. Even with a plan to legalize — building a new power plant — the time required to resolve violations is measured in years, not weeks. For regulators and local communities, this raises the question of whether existing oversight mechanisms are sufficient to contain the pace of AI infrastructure deployment.