Elon Musk’s xAI has deployed 59 natural gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 supercomputer and data center project near Memphis, Tennessee. The kicker: none of them have the required federal Clean Air Act permits.
The installations, positioned near the Tennessee-Mississippi border to service facilities in Memphis and Southaven, Mississippi, have triggered lawsuits from the Southern Environmental Law Center, Earthjustice, and the NAACP. The core complaints center on Clean Air Act violations, absent pollution controls, and disproportionate environmental harm to communities of color in the surrounding areas.
From 35 turbines to 59, and counting
This isn’t xAI’s first rodeo with unpermitted gas turbines. The original Colossus 1 phase of the project had roughly 35 turbines running before some were demobilized following electrical grid upgrades in 2025. Rather than scaling back, xAI nearly doubled down, jumping to 59 turbines for the expanded Colossus 2 build.
The NAACP’s involvement underscores a critical dimension of this dispute. The data centers are sited in areas with significant communities of color, populations that already bear disproportionate pollution burdens according to environmental justice research. Critics highlight potential emissions from these units, which include smog-producing pollutants and hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde that threaten local residential areas.
