HE NEEDS TO KNOW
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South Memphis residents say they worry about long-term health effects from the rapid construction of Elon Musk’s data center last year
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“It is the air given by God and man should not take it from us,” said a 76-year-old woman.
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While various organizations, advocates and watchdog groups are sounding the alarm, city officials have argued that the company’s presence in the area will support the local economy.
Some Memphis residents say they’re already fighting for clean air after Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company began releasing plumes of pollution to power its massive data center.
“It’s God’s air and man shouldn’t take it away from us,” said Easter Knox, a 76-year-old woman who lives in Boxtown, just three miles from the xAI data center. Time at the beginning of this year. “I don’t care how much money you got.”
The woman – who was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in 2024 and has lost three loved ones to cancer – started smelling gas in the air last year and stops opening her windows because of the “rotten cabbage” smell.
Boxtown has a majority black population with a median household income of $36,000, Time and Politico previously reported. For generations, residents have struggled with pollution-related health problems.
The area includes 17 industrial facilities, and air quality was considered unhealthy due to smog even before the billionaire’s supercomputer was built, according to Politico. The advent of the data facility has only exacerbated the plight of the residents.
“Imagine the outcry if these facilities were placed next to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, no one would allow that,” said Austin Dalgo, a University of South Memphis primary care physician. TIME. “Instead, they were placed in the backyard of a historically black, underserved neighborhood, reinforcing a long legacy of environmental racism in Memphis and our country.”
Musk and xAI did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.
On xAI’s website, the company describes their supercomputer, called Colossus, as “the world’s largest.” The AI training system, with a staggering 200,000 GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) output, helps power the company’s chatbot, Grok, according to the site.
“We were told it would take 24 months to build,” read a message on the site. “So we took the project into our own hands, questioned everything, removed everything that was unnecessary and met our goal in four months.”
To power the massive car, the company used gas turbines, according to reports.
The turbines were intended to be a temporary solution as adequate infrastructure was built to support Colossus, but residents said they fear the dangerous precedent such moves set for other AI data centers, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.
In June, the NAACP filed a notice of intent to sue xAI, alleging the company is in violation of the Clean Air Act, though no lawsuit has yet been filed, according to the publication.
None of those turbines had pollution controls that are normally required by federal law or a permit until this summer, Politico previously reported, noting that by then they had already been in operation for six months.
After months of debate, the Shelby County Health Department approved a permit in July.
In a statement shared with the Memphis Commercial Appeal in July, xAI said it complies with all federal, state and local laws. The company said all temporary turbines have been taken out of service, with only 15 permitted turbines in use, according to the report. (The company is also building a second Colossus campus at 5420 Tulane Road, with plans to build an even larger data center in nearby Whitehaven, outlets reported.)
On Monday, Dec. 15, an appeal to revoke xAI’s flight permit was denied following a seven-hour hearing involving community members, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
A central point of the appeal was that the original decision was “unlawful” and that the current situation allows companies to install gas turbines without permits, local community input or preliminary environmental reports, according to the publication.
AUSTIN JOHNSON/AFP via Getty
People march in protest against the arrival of xAI and the National Guard in Memphis, Tennessee.
While various organizations, advocates and watchdog groups are sounding the alarm, city officials have argued that the company’s presence in the area will support the local economy through new jobs and property tax revenue that will go toward public projects, according to Time.
That didn’t sway some residents’ concerns. In April, hundreds of people showed up at a public hearing on xAI’s air permit for permanent turbines and shared their fears.
“Why can’t we breathe at home?” said Alexis Humphrey, 28, who had her first major asthma attack in 15 years shortly after the supercomputer was built, according to Time.
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After the Trump administration shut down the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific research arm, concern grew as data centers owned by big companies rushed to expand. Residents raised concerns about rising electricity costs, while people in other states worried about the quality of their drinking water.
As concern about the long-term health effects of the nearby data center grows in South Memphis, more people are speaking out.
At a protest earlier this year, according to Politico, state Rep. Justin Pearson said, “They put our lungs and air on the auction block and sold us to the richest man in the world.”
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