How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer

Down a long, flat road in the industrial zone of South Memphis, a newly occupied factory is humming with activity. It’s a low-level white building that spans the length of several football fields. Workers in florescent green vests excavate the surrounding land, and a parade of construction trucks comes and goes. More than a dozen generators steadily burn methane gas. This part of Memphis, Tenn., is known for its factories and smokestacks. Nearby are a handful of historically Black neighborhoods, where poor air quality has given residents elevated asthma rates and lower life expectancy. Now, they have a new neighbor: Elon Musk. He took over the massive factory just a few months ago with the goal of building the “world’s largest supercomputer.” It’s named “Colossus,” sharing the title with both a mutant Russian comic book character and a sci-fi movie about a supercomputer that becomes sentient and goes rogue. The name originally comes from the mythical Greek statue “Colossus of Rhodes.” This data center will supply the compute power for Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. It could be a test case of this technology’s groundbreaking advances, and also its unintended consequences. AI& requires more electricity& to complete even simple tasks...