xAI turbines to stay past a full year

SpaceX said it will remove the roughly 69 unpermitted gas turbines powering xAI’s Colossus data centers outside Memphis while it builds out a permanent 1.2-gigawatt gas plant on the site, with removal starting as early as August and running through July 2027. The NAACP and Southern Environmental Law Center are still suing xAI over the turbines’ lack of permits.

Update, August 31: SpaceX has acquired roughly 830 acres near its Bastrop, Texas Starlink facility to build a turbine-blade foundry, aiming to cut deployment time for new turbines by up to 18 months; only four companies worldwide currently cast turbine blades at industrial scale, and GE Vernova, the leading supplier, reports being sold out through 2030 on AI-driven demand. Separately, a Virginia study cited in the same reporting found that a single eight-turbine facility’s emissions could affect more than 2.5 million people across multiple counties, estimating 3.4 to 6.5 additional premature deaths a year and $53 million to $99 million in annual health-related damages. The NAACP continues to cite Memphis turbine emissions of smog-forming compounds and formaldehyde as evidence xAI is operating without required permits or pollution controls.