xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, plans to expand its Colossus supercomputer tenfold. According to the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, the existing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, will grow from 100,000 to more than one million Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs).
Colossus, considered the world's largest AI supercomputer, was built in just three months. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang praised the rapid construction, noting that such data centers typically take three years to build.
The expansion will likely require tens of billions of dollars in investment, as modern Nvidia GPUs cost tens of thousands of dollars each. Earlier this year, xAI raised $11 billion from investors in a funding round that valued the company at $45 billion. The company recently secured an additional $5 billion in funding.
The Greater Memphis Chamber announced that Nvidia, Dell, and Supermicro will open new offices in the area. A dedicated "xAI Special Operations Team" will provide the company with 24/7 concierge service. Critics have raised concerns about the rapid construction without adequate permits and the high load on the local power grid. At a Memphis event, xAI manager Brent Mayo emphasized that the company uses Tesla's Megapack technology to ensure grid stability and "advance progress at an unmatched pace."
xAI plans its own app
The company plans to train new versions of Grok on Colossus. The chatbot, currently available only through X, has not yet matched the capabilities of competitors like OpenAI or Anthropic. Besides an improved Grok version, the company also plans to launch a standalone xAI app, similar to ChatGPT.
This puts Musk in direct competition with OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015. Following his falling out with CEO Sam Altman, he recently sued the company over its conversion from a non-profit to a for-profit organization.
