This is a source-attributed discovery row. It can help you find a place and its citations; it is not a DataCenterData finding that the facility is distinct or currently operating.
Reported geography
Source-reported location for Colossus.
Exact source coordinates (provider label); this is not a parcel claim. Nearby source points are combined into one accessible target that opens this exact map scope. View these exact rows on the interactive map →
Source row snapshot
- Operator as published
- xAI
- Address and locality
- Memphis · Shelby County · Tennessee
- Official metro area
- Memphis, TN-MS-AR
- Source-reported status
- operational
- Provider facility type
- data center
- Reported capacity
- Operational: 150 MW; Planned: 1,200 MW (source-reported; boundary not independently verified; MW measure not stated by provider)
- Source freshness
- 10 September 2026
- Location precision
- exact (provider label)
- Compute Atlas confidence label
- reported (provider's classification; not a DataCenterData check)
- Stable directory ID
dcd-dir-001585
Reported details
Source-reported by Compute Atlas; not independently verified by DataCenterData. Provider wording is kept; long provider notes are shortened and marked …; unknown is not zero; none of these values is totaled, ranked or compared.
- Electric utility
- Memphis Light Gas & Water (MLGW) / TVA
- Power source
- Mixed
- On-site generation
- 422 MW (source-reported)
- Cooling
- Evaporative
- Reported water use
- 3 million gallons per day (source-reported)
- Announced investment
- $12 billion
- Community response
- Provider label: litigation
- AI-use label (provider)
- confirmed
- Announced
- 2024
Provider notes
Energy. About 35 on-site natural-gas turbines (a combined 422 MW per SELC and aerial imagery) supplement a 150 MW grid substation and Tesla Megapack storage. The Shelby County Health Department permitted only 15 turbines; the SELC/NAACP/Young, Gifted & Green appeal of that permit was dismissed as moot by the Memphis and Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board on a 6-1 vote on 2025-12-15 (after the health department and xAI argued most turbines had been removed), ending the appeal-triggered stay and leaving the permit in force; press at the time reported 12 SCR-equipped turbines still active and a …
Water. The open cooling loop's design draw is roughly 3 MGD from the Memphis Sands aquifer via MLGW (xAI engineer, per Governing), though Protect Our Aquifer reported a lower early-operational actual of ~0.8 MGD (~812,000 gal/day) in early 2025 as the site was still ramping. xAI broke ground in Oct 2025 on an $80M greywater-recycling plant at the T.E. Maxson wastewater facility (targeting ~10 MGD of treated wastewater); construction was later paused.
These reviews flag conflicting scope, inconsistent source text or support that has not been established. A withheld value may appear in the explanation, but is not displayed as an established field. The upstream row remains attributed under Sources.
- Provider community note: The captured provider context gives conflicting accounts of a permit appeal and a separate power-plant case. The community note is withheld pending operative-record review.
What the source record says
Subsidies checked 2026-09-09: confirmed absence. Unlike the usual Memphis path, xAI did not obtain a PILOT or any formally granted incentive for the Memphis site, so the subsidies field is deliberately left empty rather than unknown. The site is instead expected to pay more than $30 million in combined Memphis and Shelby County property taxes. CORRECTION: energy.notes currently states 'an SELC/NAACP appeal stays that permit' -- this is stale. The Memphis and Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board voted 6-1 on 2025-12-15 to dismiss the NAACP/Young, Gifted & Green appeal of Air Permit No. 01156-01PC as moot, ending the appeal-triggered stay. Recommend energy.notes be updated to reflect that the appeal was dismissed (not that it currently stays anything), and that community.notes (currently 'an SELC/NAACP appeal to the Shelby County Air Pollution Control Board stays it') be updated the same way. Separately, a 2026-04-14 federal Clean Air Act suit (NAACP v. X.AI Corp. and MZX Tech LLC, No. 3:26-cv-00074, N.D. Miss.) is ongoing, but its claims target xAI's Southaven, MS 'Colossus Gas Plant' (MZX Tech LLC, 2875 Stanton Road South) -- a different facility -- not this Memphis site or CTC Property LLC, which is not a named defendant; it cites this site's turbine history only as background evidence of a pattern. Full primary-source detail (including that the permit covers 15 turbines permanently, not 35) is now captured in the companion new-facility record xai-colossus-1-turbines-memphis-tn. CORRECTION (sourcing quality, not fact): sources[0] and sources[5] both cite en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer), an aggregator-tier source, for this site of all sites. sources[0] is the sourceIndex behind statusHistory[0] ('Construction began; completed in approximately 122 days', dated 2024-06). Primary/official and named-quote replacements found and fetched this run: (1) NVIDIA's own newsroom press release (2024-10-28, official/primary) states Colossus was 'built by xAI and NVIDIA in just 122 days, instead of the typical timeframe' and comprises '100,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs in Memphis, Tennessee'; (2) Fortune (2025-03-14) quotes Super Micro CEO Charles Liang on the record: 'It took Elon and Super Micro only 122 days to finish,' adding it would usually take a year or longer. Per instructions, I have NOT attempted to delete or reorder the existing Wikipedia citations myself -- these two sources are offered as additions for the maintainer to use when manually reordering/replacing sources[0] and sources[5].
Any MW value is reproduced as source-reported context. Its measurement boundary is not established consistently enough for comparison. Unknown is not zero.
Status history supplied by the source
- 2024-06 · source-reported under construction
Construction began; completed in approximately 122 days
- 2024-09 · source-reported operational
Phase 1 online with ~100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs; later expanded with H200s
Sources and attribution
These sources are listed for the whole row. Unless a figure links to its own source, the provider does not mark which one gave it, so a figure may not appear in every source.
- Colossus (supercomputer) — Wikipedia · Wikipedia
- Musk says xAI has built world's most powerful AI training cluster — Reuters · Reuters
- xAI doubles number of on-site gas turbines at Memphis data center in violation of permit limits — Data Center Dynamics · Data Center Dynamics
- Wastewater Will Cool This Memphis Data Center — Governing · Governing
- Musk's xAI permits challenged by NAACP, environmental groups in Memphis — CNBC · CNBC
- Here's what xAI will pay in property taxes · Daily Memphian
Adapted from Compute Atlas by Edward Kubiak, edition 1.34.1, under CC BY 4.0. Upstream ID xai-colossus-memphis-tn. Filtered to data-center records in the 50 U.S. states; selected fields normalized for search and display; DataCenterData directory IDs added. Some locations in this layer are reported by the provider as derived from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL, https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) and Epoch AI (CC BY 4.0).
Compute Atlas 1.34.1 with retained prior rows and publication holds. This is a DataCenterData composite, not an unmodified publisher edition. This row uses the captured source from 1.34.1, source as of 2026-10-14T20:40:52.293Z.
That does not mean the row is wrong, and it does not mean no reviewed record exists for the same place. A link is added only when an identifier or source establishes the match.
Recorded information
What this page records, grouped by topic, with the source's units and qualifications. Company-reported values stay labeled as company-reported. Related listings are shown separately.
Licensed directory listing dcd-dir-001585
Licensed directory row.
Provider notes and the source narrative are printed on this page and are not repeated here.
Identity and relationships
- Provider facility type: data center
Provider facility type.
- AI-use label (provider): confirmed
Compute Atlas classification, not a DataCenterData finding.
Location and precision
- Memphis, TN · Shelby (Exact location)
Roles
- Operator: xAI
Operator label as published by the provider; no parent company is inferred.
Lifecycle
- Source-stated status: source-reported operational
Provider status label; not a DataCenterData finding that the facility is operating.
- Announced: 2024
Provider-reported announcement date.
- Status history: 2024-06 · source-reported under construction
Status history supplied by the source.
- Status history: 2024-09 · source-reported operational
Status history supplied by the source.
Power capacity
- Reported capacity: Operational: 150 MW; Planned: 1,200 MW (source-reported; boundary not independently verified; MW measure not stated by provider)
Reproduced as the page prints it; not ranked or totaled; unknown is not zero.
- Electric utility: Memphis Light Gas & Water (MLGW) / TVA
Utility as named by the provider.
- Power source: Mixed
Provider label.
- On-site generation: 422 MW (source-reported)
On-site figures often describe backup generators rather than primary supply; read the provider energy note.
Cooling, water, PUE and WUE
- Cooling: Evaporative
Provider label.
- Reported water use: 3 million gallons per day (source-reported)
Whether this is metered use, a permit limit or a request is not established; see the provider water note.
Permits, incentives, jobs and proceedings
- Announced investment: $12 billion
Announced figure; whether it covers one building, a campus or a multi-phase program is not established.
- Community response: Provider label: litigation
Compute Atlas characterization, not a DataCenterData assessment.
Sources, dates, limitations and corrections
- Provider update date: 2026-09-10
Provider update date is not a DataCenterData verification date.
Not yet recorded here: Area, acreage and buildings · Connectivity · Services · Certifications and design ratings · Rack density · Availability · Specification links and contact.
Licensed values: adapted from Compute Atlas by Edward Kubiak under CC BY 4.0. Source-reported and not independently verified.
Update this profile with a public source. The request includes topics needing more information; this does not mean the facility lacks them. Corrections and additions are reviewed before publication.