xAI has added 19 pure gasoline generators to its second information middle campus in Southhaven, Mississippi, over the previous two months, in keeping with inner emails seen by WIRED.
The additions come as xAI is combating a lawsuit from the NAACP and a number of other environmental teams, alleging that the corporate is violating the Clear Air Act by working greater than two dozen pure gasoline generators on the website with out acceptable air permits.
Emails between an official within the Mississippi Division of Environmental High quality and a consultant from Trinity Consultants, obtained by way of a public data request by the Southern Environmental Regulation Middle and shared with WIRED, present that xAI put in 19 transportable gasoline generators on its website in Southaven between late March and early Might. That brings the whole to 46 generators working on the website.
A spreadsheet included within the e-mail to MDEQ has a column labeled “Complete Energy Output” that seems to listing the megawatt capability of every turbine on the positioning. xAI seems to have added greater than 500 megawatts of pure gasoline generators since mid-March.
Burning pure gasoline can launch planet-warming emissions and worsen air high quality. Officers on the MDEQ and xAI didn’t reply to WIRED’s request for remark. The additions of the brand new generators to the positioning, dubbed Colossus 2, had been first reported by Mississippi Immediately.
“As indicated by the ability, all transportable/momentary generators are outfitted with management know-how to attenuate emissions,” company spokesperson Jan Schaefer informed Mississippi Immediately. “MDEQ is evaluating the state of affairs and can make the ability conscious as to when it may possibly now not deliver extra transportable/momentary generators on-site.”
In April, the NAACP, together with the SELC and Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit towards xAI, alleging that the corporate had been working a “private energy plant” in Southaven by operating 27 gasoline generators with out the required permits. Ben Grillot, a lawyer with SELC, says that the group observed six extra generators on the website throughout a drone flyover in April. Solely after getting the MDEQ emails did the crew notice there have been 19 new generators. Based on the dates on the e-mail seen by WIRED, eight of the 19 new generators, representing greater than 200 megawatts of output, had been put in after the lawsuit was filed.
The unique xAI website, Colossus 1, situated over the state border in Memphis, Tennessee, obtained widespread criticism in 2024 after locals alleged that gasoline generators at that website had been being run with out a allow. Colossus 1 sits in Boxtown, a traditionally Black neighborhood that has lengthy had issues with dangerous air high quality.
Regulators in each Tennessee and Mississippi have stated that as a result of xAI’s generators are usually not stationary, it has a 12 months to function them with out permits below the Clear Air Act. Final July, Memphis’ native well being division granted a allow for the generators on the Colossus 1 website, regardless of intense group opposition. In March, confronted with comparable group outcry, the MDEQ granted an air allow for the Southaven website to run 41 gasoline generators. (SELC says that the 27 generators in its lawsuit and those added to the positioning in current months are usually not a part of this allow. Neither xAI nor the MDEQ answered WIRED’s questions on whether or not the generators listed within the emails are lined by the air allow granted in March.) Drone footage and public data obtained by news outlet Floodlight present that a number of generators on the website had been operating within the weeks earlier than the MDEQ granted the allow.
