Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has purchased a 1 million square foot site in Southwest Memphis to expand the reach of its artificial intelligence data center, according to a press release from the Memphis Chamber of Commerce.
The new land will host infrastructure to complement xAI's existing Memphis data center.
"xAI's acquisition of this site ensures that we will continue to be at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation in Memphis," xAI senior site manager Brent Mayo said in a statement.
It's unclear whether the expansion is related to the previously announced new lease on 522 acres in Memphis.
xAI craves artificial intelligence hardware. According to reports, the startup recently built a second data center in Atlanta and invested $700 million in purchasing chips and other equipment. It also signed a deal with Dell to buy $5 billion worth of GPU-packaged servers.
xAI uses its data centers to train and run its Grok family of artificial intelligence models. The company plans to upgrade its main Memphis facility, called Colossus, to 1 million NVIDIA GPUs from 100,000 last year sometime this year.
Some residents have criticized xAI's continued expansion in Memphis, arguing it would put pressure on the power grid and worsen the area's air quality. To win their support, xAI provided local utilities with discounted batteries made by Tesla and built a water recycling plant.
To fund AI infrastructure projects, xAI is said to be discussing a $10 billion funding round that would value the company at $75 billion.