Ariel Wittenberg for Politico, writing about xAI’s use of gas turbines to power its supercomputer in Memphis:
Just three miles away is Boxtown, a secluded neighborhood that officially became part of the city of Memphis in 1968, the year that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel downtown. While the annexation had come with the promise of connecting Boxtown to municipal utilities, many homes still had no running water or sewage service as late as the 1970s.
Today, more than 90 percent of residents living in Boxtown’s ZIP code are Black, with a median household income of $36,000, according to the Census Bureau. It’s also home to more than 17 industrial facilities — some of which share an industrial park with xAI — that release enough toxic pollution to require registration with EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.
“I can’t breathe at home, it smells like gas outside,” Boxtown resident Alexis Humphreys said through tears, holding up her asthma inhaler during a public hearing about the turbines on April 25. “How come I can’t breathe at home and y’all get to breathe at home?”
This morning, I was emailed a press release from the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce. Here is the release in its entirety:
On Thursday, May 1, 2025, less than one year from the project announcement, xAI reached full operational capability for Phase I of the two Phase operation at the former Electrolux site. xAI was connected to a newly constructed electric substation (#63) from which it is now receiving 150MW of grid power from MLGW and TVA. Additionally, 150MW of Megapack Batteries for stored energy backup have been integrated into the operation, to help the system ride through outages, or demand response events during times of peak grid demand.
The temporary natural gas turbines that were being used to power the Phase I GPUs prior to grid connection are now being demobilized and will be removed from the site over the next two months. About half of the operating turbines will remain operating to power Phase II GPUs of xAI until a second substation (#22) already in construction is completed and connected to the electric grid, which is planned for the Fall of 2025, at which time the remaining turbines will be relegated to a backup power role.
xAI is committed to Memphis through their sustainable environmental practices. The company is participating in the Demand Response program as outlined by MLGW and is exploring ways to provide energy to the grid for the benefit of the community, especially in emergency situations or other times of need. As xAI grows, so will Memphis.
Pumping pollution into some of our poorest neighborhoods isn’t the growth we should be striving for in a city that already struggles with massive inequality.