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Musk's xAI operating gas turbines without permits at information center, ecological group says

Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, is facing criticism from environmental and health supporters for presumably adding to pollution in Memphis, Tennessee, by utilizing natural gasburning turbines at its data center without obtaining required licenses.

The Southern Environmental Law Center sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency and the health department in Shelby County where the data center is located.

In spite of installing nearly 20 gas turbines with an integrated capacity of about 100 MW - sufficient electricity to power around 50,000 homes - xAI apparently has actually not gotten any air permits for these turbines, the letter, dated Aug. 26, said.

The ecological legal advocacy company called on the county's health department to validate if xAI is operating these turbines without the required air permits and take enforcement action.

It stated the gas turbines release large quantities of gases that intensify currently poor air quality in Memphis.

Musk stated late last month a cluster of powerful Nvidia H100 chips started training xAI's Grok AI design and dubbed the Tennessee information center as the most effective AI training cluster in the world.

He included the center will provide a substantial benefit in training the world's most powerful AI by December.

Elon Musk and xAI did not instantly respond to demands for remark.

The start-up, founded by Musk in 2015 and valued at more than $24 billion in May, was billed as a competitor to OpenAI, Alphabet's Google and Anthropic. It just recently introduced Grok 2 series of language models previously this month.

(source: Reuters)