We are used to talking to AI. With a few keystrokes, a question is quickly deconstructed, calculated, and the answer is generated. It looks light, immediate, even a little unreal - like it has been "summoned" from some void. Few people ask where these answers come from. Computing power is not air. The model will not run on its own. Behind every generation, there are hundreds of GPUs, continuously running servers, and a large and complex energy system.
These things don’t float in the clouds; they have to land somewhere concrete, occupying land, consuming electricity, extracting water, and inevitably creating noise, emissions, and conflict.
Note: On the left is Colossus3 under construction, on the right are rows of gas turbines generating power, with smoke emissions clearly visible, and in the distance are the green spaces and communities surrounding Memphis. Source: Southern Environmental Law Center
In the greater Memphis metropolitan area, which spans the U.S. states of Tennessee and Mississippi, this is no longer abstract.
The story there is classic: power, cracks in the rules, land, water, a group of residents who are forced into it, and Musk.
One night in June 2024, Musk posted a seemingly casual tweet on
Before long, some workers began to appear in the old industrial area of South Memphis. Wearing hats with the xAI logo and uniform vests, they were busy around an old factory. Trucks were coming in and out, and fences were quickly going up.
Greater Memphis spans the state lines of Tennessee and Mississippi. This place has never had anything to do with cutting-edge AI - it is a logistics hub, a long-established manufacturing town, and the home of blues music. In the past few decades, it has mainly relied on FedEx, auto parts factories, and oil refineries to survive.
Caption: Memphis is the hometown of Elvis Presley
Most local residents have difficulty understanding what is happening.
On the other side, Musk is rapidly deploying in Memphis. That year, he publicly announced that xAI would build the "Gigafactory of Compute" in Memphis—the world's largest supercomputer cluster, named Colossus.
Everything is fast:
"We went to the data center provider and asked them how long it would take to have 100,000 GPUs working together in the same location. The time they gave was 18 to 24 months. (That long) means that failure is inevitable. The only way is to do it ourselves."
As a result, it only took them 122 days to build Colossus 1 from scratch to partially online. Initially, 100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs were installed, and the capacity was quickly expanded. The location is Memphis, Tennessee, adjacent to the Boxtown community.
Caption: Panoramic aerial photography of Colossus 1: large white factory buildings, parking lots and surrounding industrial areas | Action News 5
Huang Renxun called this a "superhuman level" achievement: "There is only one person in the world who can do this, and that is Elon." He also said that the xAI team completed the cluster assembly in 19 days that took others a year. "No one has ever done it before."
In February and March 2025, xAI acquired a 1 million-square-foot old warehouse in Whitehaven, Tennessee, not far from the first phase of the Boxtown project, and launched Colossus 2, with the goal of doubling the scale and planning to accommodate more than 550,000 GPUs.
Caption: Colossus 2, a warehouse renovation project covering approximately 1 million square feet
In January 2026, the Governor of Mississippi personally announced that xAI would invest more than US$20 billion in Southaven to build Colossus 3 (also called MACROHARDRR). This is actually next to Whitehaven, just across the state border. At the same time, xAI built a natural gas power generation facility on an old factory site here - first 27 temporary turbines, and later applied to expand to 41 permanent turbines to provide supplementary power to Colossus 2 and 3.
Legend: Colossus 3 (Mississippi) and Colossus 2 (Tennessee) are very close, but separated by a state border. All are included in the Memphis metropolitan area.
It sounds like there are a lot of confusing place names, but in fact they are all concentrated in Memphis, which is not far away. The entire cluster spans two states and is actually a closely connected "power generation-computing power" complex: the data center itself is in Tennessee, and the power generation backyard is in Mississippi, with only a state line in between.
There are many reasons why we chose Memphis: it is an industrial area and there are existing old factories that can be repurposed. In addition, there is TVA to stabilize the power grid, it is close to the Mississippi River (convenient for logistics and water resources), there is sufficient land, and local government approval is fast.
The cross-state operation is even more savvy. Colossus 2 is in Tennessee and the power generation facilities are in Mississippi. It can enjoy the pro-business policies of both states - Tennessee provides ready industrial land and TVA power support, while Mississippi provides the largest single investment discount in history, and the approval is relatively flexible.
Many local officials and organizations welcomed him with open arms.
The Memphis Chamber of Commerce views xAI as a model for "operating at the speed of business," and the mayor and officials have repeatedly stressed that it will bring high-paying jobs and tax revenue. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn publicly stated that "Tennessee is the best place to do business," and xAI's choice of Memphis is proof of this.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves was more direct. He said at a press conference in January 2026: "This is the largest corporate investment in Mississippi history" and called the project a milestone in "allowing Mississippi to power the world's most powerful supercomputer."
Local officials even mentioned that xAI promises to create hundreds of permanent jobs and generate tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue in the first year.
In the eyes of many people, this is a "miracle": a billionaire brought Memphis to the world stage in just a few months with the world's most cutting-edge AI project. But for residents living near the xAI "miracle", the miracle has had a pungent gas smell and continuous roaring sounds from the beginning. The story has just begun.
Memphis residents did not imagine that their homes would be polluted in the future. Instead, they first noticed something was wrong when they smelled a pungent odor in the air, discovered thick dust on the appliances in their homes, and were kept awake by buzzing noises at night.
That kind of noise is like a vacuum cleaner running 24 hours a day, or a jet plane about to take off nearby - but it is always about to take off.
Legend: In Southaven, Mississippi, a small community of 50,000 people living near the xAI "temporary power plant", the noise at the door of residents' homes exceeds 60 decibels.
The "AI data center" itself is an avant-garde and complex facility. The local construction of xAI is extremely rapid and large-scale, and there is no public explanation (whether from Musk or the local government). It is not easy to know what facilities there are and what impact they will have on the local area.
It was only later that Memphis residents figured out what was happening.
It turns out that the noise and the unpleasant smell in the air mainly come from gas turbines - these machines directly burn methane to generate electricity to provide power for supercomputers.
Note: 35 gas turbines without formal licenses are exhaling exhaust without any anti-pollution measures. Picture: Climate and Capital Media
These gas turbines have also become the biggest controversy between the locals and Musk.
In the power plant next to Colossus 2 and 3, the generators are like rows of iron objects the size of trailers, placed side by side. They whir and smoke during the day, and buzz 24 hours a day at night. The sound can be heard in residential areas half a mile away.
The surrounding residents are miserable:
"I can't stand nine more months like this, it's going to drive me crazy."
"I was woken up at two o'clock in the middle of the night, and I had a constant headache."
"There is always a natural smell in the air, like rotten cabbage. I rarely open the windows since then."
"I had my first severe asthma attack in 15 years and my chest felt like it was going to collapse."
These machines mainly produce three harmful substances: nitrogen oxides (NOx), formaldehyde, and fine particulate matter PM2.5. NOx will aggravate the already serious local haze, formaldehyde is listed as a carcinogen, and PM2.5 can directly enter the blood, amplifying the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. According to estimates by environmental groups, the 27 turbines near Colossus 2 and 3 may emit more than 1,700 tons of NOx, 19 tons of formaldehyde and 180 tons of fine particulate matter a year - which is nothing short of adding insult to injury for an industrial community with a cancer rate that is four times that of the country and a prominent asthma problem.
Memphis has its own special features. First, it has a high proportion of black people, and second, it is an old industrial area.
Take the Boxtown community where xAI's first phase data center project Colossus1 is located as an example.
It was originally a community established by freed slaves after the Civil War. More than 90% of its residents are black, and the median income is only $37,000. For decades, this area has been an industrial area, with oil refineries and steel mills nearby. It was even once listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the most serious toxic waste pollution site in the United States and in need of priority cleanup.
The air quality here is poor all year round, the cancer rate is four times the national average, and asthma and respiratory diseases are commonplace. Residents have absorbed too much pollutants for generations, and now xAI's generators are coming in a big way, which makes people feel unbearable.
Why does the xAI generator appear here? In the final analysis, it is because xAI requires massive amounts of power, and the power grid cannot keep up for a while. They chose to build their own "temporary" power generation facilities.
The problem lies in the "temporary".
The first phase, Colossus 1, was located near Boxtown, Memphis, and used up to 35 non-fully licensed generators; the second phase, Colossus 2, extended to Southaven, Mississippi (close to the state line), and installed 27 temporary generators.
The combined power of these machines is astonishing, equivalent to powering a small city, but bypasses conventional pollution control requirements——xAI said the generators were "temporary" and therefore could receive a one-year "exemption" based on local policy.
In other words, "temporary" generators can be put into operation directly without air permits or any anti-pollution measures.
Legend: "xAI Kills 901" (xAI is killing Memphis District 901)
The locals are not sitting still. They began organizing: marching, protesting, attending hearings, and campaigning through organizations like the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The core of the dispute between local residents of Memphis and xAI is that xAI claims that the generator is a "temporary" device, which in the eyes of local opponents is just taking advantage of a policy loophole.
Opponents argue that the generators, although labeled "temporary" and mounted on trailers, are actually positioned with concrete or heavy-duty fixtures and have never been moved. Moreover, xAI has laid permanent natural gas pipelines and directly connects the generators from the main pipelines. The most important thing is that power is directly supplied to the Colossus 2 data center opposite (Whitehaven, Tennessee) through private dedicated transmission lines, forming a fixed combination of "power generation-power consumption" and a regular, long-term power supply.
Legend: xAI once claimed that although they had 30+ gas turbines, only half of them were actually put into use. But opponents have discovered through thermal imaging that this is not the case.
For a long time, the confrontation between the two sides has always existed. xAI occasionally asked representatives to appear in some public places, reciting texts prepared in advance, with strict and friendly wording, but without interaction and short stay. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and local environmental protection agencies have remained silent.
Interestingly, when Trump took office as President of the United States in early 2025, Musk became his right-hand man for a time. The DOGE he was responsible for "suggested" many federal budget cuts, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
For example, in March 2025, the EPA announced plans to roll back more than 30 air and water quality standards, including protections for fine particulate matter. The new administrator even described promoting the development of the AI industry as a core part of EPA's mission.
"This is about unleashing energy dominance and making the United States the AI capital of the world. The EPA can't limit that. We can't stifle it."
Note: In the news footage at the time, the new administrator of the EPA said that it was a pleasure to cooperate with Musk’s DOGE.
It wasn't until 2026 that the dispute in Memphis finally reached a turning point. In January, the EPA clearly stated that large combustion turbines, even if they are removable and marked as temporary, have always been considered stationary pollution sources. The EPA said the so-called "exemption" has never applied to this type of equipment.
Now, although it has not yet been used for a year, the "temporary" power plants near Colossus 2 and 3 can no longer operate without a license.
As a result, xAI began to apply to convert the generators here into "permanent" equipment, and the number increased from 27 to 41.
Opposition among local residents is high.
xAI’s application needs to be approved by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Protection (MDEQ), and before that, MDEQ holds a public hearing—something local residents have been waiting for.
However, MDEQ scheduled the hearing around February 17, and the location was a three-hour drive from the community, which made locals suspect that MDEQ was making it more difficult for everyone to participate.
However, hundreds of people attended the hearing, and they were passionate. No one supported xAI's application to convert the 41 generators into permanent ones.
Source: NBC News
"xAI comes from Silicon Valley culture. That culture is to move forward quickly, break, break." One resident angrily expressed dissatisfaction at the hearing.
Dramatically, despite almost unanimous opposition from hundreds of residents at the hearing, just weeks later, in March, the MDEQ Licensing Committee approved the conversion of 41 gas turbines (with a capacity of approximately 1.2GW) to a "permanent" nature to provide supplementary power for Colossus 2 and the future Colossus 3.
And just this month, in April 2026, local residents of Memphis were hit again. Members of xAI revealed that the water recycling plant previously promised by the company has been "suspended indefinitely."
This water recycling plant was an important bargaining chip for the early landing of the xAI data center in Memphis. At that time, it was promised to invest US$80 million to build this plant to purify wastewater and use it to cool the Colossus supercomputer.
What would happen if there was no such factory?
Data centers require large amounts of water to cool, which means in the short term, the Colossus project will continue to pump large amounts of fresh water from the Memphis Sandstone Aquifer for cooling. The drinking water for local residents mainly comes from the sandstone aquifer.
Not only is this "poisoning" the locals, but they are also competing with the locals for water resources. It is strange that they are well received.
In April 2026, the opposition in Memphis reached its climax.
On April 9, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in conjunction with the Southern Environmental Law Center and other organizations, filed a petition with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ)A formal administrative appeal has been filed challenging the MDEQ's March 10 approval of 41 permanent natural gas turbine air permits.
Just five days later, on April 14, the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP, the national headquarters, the Southern Environmental Law Center, Earthjustice, etc. filed another lawsuit in federal court.Take xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech directly to court.
The indictment directly accuses xAI of operating 27 natural gas turbines in Southaven without permission for several months, seriously violating the Clean Air Act, and requires the court to immediately order shutdowns, install pollution control equipment, and impose huge fines.
It is not difficult to see from the two-year tug-of-war between xAI and local opposition forces in Memphis that the information asymmetry between the two sides is extremely serious and the power disparity is also huge.
Musk has always been known for his thunderous tactics. He was able to transform Colossus 1 from an old factory into the world's largest AI cluster in 122 days, put Colossus 2 online within a few months, and put together power plants and data centers across state lines like Lego. This speed amazed the world, but also made Memphis residents feel powerless.
In his hands, the rules seem to be something that can be flexibly adjusted: first put the turbine into operation with a "temporary mobile" label, and then apply for a permanent license after a few months of pollution; first promise to build a water recycling plant in exchange for support, and then suspend it indefinitely when it reaches 25%. Speed is always ranked first, and commitment can always be ranked behind.
There are not a few officials who openly support xAI.
Previously, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called for a nationwide moratorium on data center construction.
“I understand there are people who don’t want any industrial projects in their backyards,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a February statement. “I can’t understand the urge to stop a country’s scientific and technological progress—unless it amounts to civilizational suicide.”
In Southaven, where Colossus 2 and 3 are located, Republican Mayor Darren Musselwhite also defended xAI:
"I would never support any development that would jeopardize the safety of the people of Southaven. (But) the objective facts show that this is a safe development that does not pose any additional risk to our people."
The pull between Musk and xAI in Memphis is just a more extreme case of the large-scale data centers that are now blooming across the United States and even around the world. In fact, similar pulls occur elsewhere.
The data center cluster in northern Virginia, dominated by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta, has seriously exhausted the local power grid and water resources, and residents have continued to protest; the "Project Blue" project (related to Amazon) in Tucson, Arizona, was unanimously rejected by the city council due to water and electricity issues; there are also multiple AI data center projects in Indiana and Georgia, which triggered a large-scale backlash due to noise, water consumption and rising electricity prices.
On April 14, local time, the Maine Legislature passed a ban on the construction of large data centers on Tuesday, becoming the first state in the United States to take such a measure. The bill proposes to freeze approvals for data centers that consume more than 20 megawatts of electricity until October 2027.
Reuters pointed out that so far, 11 states in the United States are considering legislation to prevent or limit the development of data centers.
Two years have passed, and Memphis residents have used seemingly weak weapons such as petitions, hearings, marches, and lawsuits to fight against a company with the strongest execution power in the world and the huge political resources behind it.
Is this "beating an egg against a stone"? Maybe, but it is these seemingly powerless voices that once again expose the cruelty behind the "speed first" logic to the public.
This battle is far from over. The water recycling plant is still on indefinite hold, the generator lawsuit is still in federal court, and the Colossus 3 expansion plan is already on the agenda, and Musk has gas turbines on the way that have not yet been scheduled for delivery.