xAI has been at the centre of ethical and legal disputes over the last year due to the 69 mobile turbines it erected in Memphis to power AI data centers, and the environmental impacts of all that tech. Now, in accordance with an agreement with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, SpaceX and xAI have agreed to take them down over the next 11 months.
In a blog post, xAI says that it will be taking down all 69 mobile turbines that currently power its facility in Southaven, Mississippi, and will instead be swapping to power from a 1.2 GW power plant it is currently constructing. Between August 2026 and July 2027, it is expected to have removed all turbines.
The blog post says, "We care deeply about being good neighbors and we regularly reconfigure power operations to reduce noise from the facility and minimize our impact on the local Southaven community." One could suggest that if xAI really cared about being good neighbours, it probably shouldn't have, as the SLEC argues, "operated with a stunning lack of transparency that left impacted communities in the dark."
xAI also says that it will make investments to equip SpaceXAI mobile turbines with emission control technologies going forward. The 1.2 GW plant will reportedly consist of 41 permanent turbines, all of which are authorised under a Clean Air Act permit.
Many AI companies have been desperately expanding data centers in the hopes of catching up with the competition. Meta just last year was reportedly expanding AI capabilities by housing data centers in tents, and is continuing to throw money at its AI infrastructure buildout.
The rapid expansion of AI has not only led to environmental concerns and companies building regardless of whether the infrastructure is there to handle it, but it has also led to the memory crisis. The reason you won't get RAM at a reasonable price these days is because of how quickly AI has expanded and how little supply there is to go around. It seems AI is unlikely to go under soon, so the memory supply will be unlikely to meet demand for at least a few years.
Even Samsung, one of the three biggest memory manufacturers, reckons next year will see a "severe" memory shortage that will last until at least 2029.
Still, even if it took kicking up a fuss and legal threats from the NAACP to do so, xAI complying with the Department of Environmental Quality is still a good move long-term. It just feels a little rich for SpaceXAI to pat itself on the back while doing so.
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