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Elon Musk brought ‘the world’s biggest supercomputer’ to Memphis. Residents say they’re choking on its pollution
- Elon Musk's company xAI opened a vast AI supercomputer facility in southwest Memphis in summer 2024 near the Boxtown community.
- The facility's arrival followed local promotion as a job source despite lack of prior air permits and community notification, fueling resident anger.
- XAI installed dozens of gas-powered turbines drawing 150 megawatts while located among 17 other polluting plants, raising pollution and health concerns in this disadvantaged area.
- ProPublica found cancer risk in southwest Memphis is over 4 times the EPA limit, while ozone pollution linked to asthma and death intensifies anxieties of residents like Sarah Gladney.
- Despite Mayor Young’s support and planned investments in training and pollution reduction, community advocates vow to continue fighting for clean air amid expanding xAI operations.
47 Articles
47 Articles
Elon Musk’s Memphis AI facility under fire for polluting Black neighborhood
MEMPHIS, Tenn.–In Boxtown — a historic Black community in South Memphis — residents are being forced to inhale a future they never asked for. In the shadow of a massive supercomputer project, Elon Musk’s company xAI quietly installed 35 methane-burning gas turbines in Boxtown — a neighborhood already burdened by a long, painful history of […] The post Elon Musk’s Memphis AI facility under fire for polluting Black neighborhood appeared first on T…
'Pollution hotspot' TN rep. calls out Mayor Lee Harris about xAI remarks
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Tennessee Representative Justin J. Pearson says he has concerns about Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris' recent remarks about xAI. Pearson said Mayor Hariss's statement -- 'I currently don't have any reason to have any concerns' (about xAI) is disturbing. xAI has been using 15 gas-powered turbines to provide electricity to power its Colossus supercomputer in southwest Memphis on a temporary basis for the past several months. Last …
'Not a Sacrifice Zone for the Profits of a Billionaire': Black Memphis Community Fights Back Against Elon Musk’s Toxic Supercomputer Plant That's Pushing Pollutants In Air
Sarah Gladney first smelled the pungent odor on a recent morning outside her home in Boxtown, a predominantly Black community in southwest Memphis. It wasn’t the “rotten cabbage” smell that was familiar to Gladney and her neighbors. This odor was more chemical, and she told “MLK 50: Justice Through Journalism” that she believes it emanates from the billionaire’s supercomputer located just one mile away from her home. “What do you have to compar…
Rich entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel see themselves as the technological spearhead of humanity. Their futurism, however, proves to be more precisely not a forward-looking one, but a relapse into a past that is already further behind.
By Laura Paddison and Rene Marsh, CNN Last summer, an abandoned factory in southwest Memphis was given new life by the world's richest man. Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI moved in to transform the unprepossessing building into the "world's largest supercomputer." Musk named it Colossus and said it was the "world's most powerful AI training system." It was promoted locally as a source of jobs, tax revenue and a key addition to th…
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