- Elon Musk's xAI is building a supercomputer factory in Memphis, Tennessee.
- Some in the Memphis City Council and environmental groups are concerned about water and power supplies.
- One Memphis city council member told Forbes that the project had caused “hysteria” among local residents.
The Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce announced last month that Elon Musk will build an xAI “computing megafactory” in the Tennessee city.
The proposed facility will be home to what Musk believes will be the world's most powerful supercomputer, which will run xAI's chatbot, Grok, which Musk hopes will be the “funniest” chatbot ever and eventually a news condenser for X (formerly Twitter).
At the time of announcement, the partnership was pending approval from the Memphis-Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine, the Tennessee Valley Development Authority and other government agencies.
Since then, the project has faced opposition from some Memphis City Council members, who worry it could disrupt the city's water and power supplies, Forbes reported Wednesday.
City Council member Pearl Walker told Forbes that the development has caused “hysteria” among local Memphis residents.
“People are scared. They're scared about what's going to happen to their water, they're scared about their energy supply,” Walker said at a Wednesday meeting of the Memphis Electric, Gas and Water Board, according to the report.
Forbes reported that the data center is expected to require 1.3 million gallons of water per day from the county's main water supply, but that could change as xAI has a verbal agreement to build a substation and greywater treatment facility.
This isn't the first time concerns have been raised about the project's impact on the surrounding area. In an open letter shared on X, three Memphis environmental groups also raised concerns about the plant's impact on the local power supply. The letter expressed concern about whether the city would be able to maintain power through “severe weather and rolling blackouts” due to facilities in the area that require large amounts of electricity.
At peak times, the xAI plant could require up to 150 megawatts of electricity per hour, enough to power roughly 100,000 homes, according to the Commercial Appeal, which added that Memphis Electricity, Gas and Water Department is working to ensure the plant doesn't impact the local power grid.
Musk's future computing gigafactory isn't the only AI data center that requires a lot of power: The Iowa facility consumed the same amount of electricity as 7 million laptops running for eight hours a day, according to Meta's 2023 Environmental Data Report, The Washington Post reported.
According to Bernstein Research, AI data centers are causing a surge in electricity demand in the U.S. and could exceed supply within two years at the current rate. A Goldman Sachs report said that a single ChatGPT query consumes nearly 10 times the amount of electricity needed for a Google search.
Still, the concerns haven't deterred Musk from forging ahead with his plan as he takes on rivals like OpenAI and Meta in the artificial intelligence arms race: Construction began shortly after the contract was awarded in March, according to Forbes.
Ted Townsend, president of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, told Business Insider at the time the city was chosen because it was an “ideal location” and could keep up with the lightning-fast pace of Musk's plans.
The billionaire previously Supercomputer It's scheduled to be up and running by fall 2025, though many of his estimates have been delayed in the past because they proved overly ambitious.
xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
