Inside SELC's Clean Air Case Against xAI in Memphis

Audio of this conversation is available via your favorite podcast service.

In June 2024, the Greater Memphis, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce announced a deal to host a substantial new computing facility. xAI built its "Colossus" data center in an old Electrolux factory. The facility was brought online at record speed, and almost immediately drew questions about transparency, air quality, water use and how a project of this scale had moved through local government so quickly.

Two years on, the story continues to expand alongside the company’s growing footprint, with a second campus, Colossus II, across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi; a contested gray water recycling plant; an ever-rising count of gas turbines; multiple lawsuits; and communities in South Memphis and beyond still pressing for straight answers.

In multiple ways, the story is a harbinger, a case study for communities across the country now reckoning with the arrival of hyperscale data centers.

One of the entities leading the way in Memphis is the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). The SELC has been a partner in litigation against xAI, gathering evidence on the company's unpermitted gas turbines and pushing state regulators to hold the company accountable under the Clean Air Act. To learn more about SELC’s case and what it means for the broader fight for transparency and accountability amid the AI infrastructure boom, I spoke to Amanda Garcia, senior attorney and data center project leader in the Tennessee office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

A note since we recorded: On June 15, the Department of Justice filed a brief siding with the company. The DOJ argued that shutting down the turbines powering Colossus 2 would threaten national, economic and energy security. The department claimed Grok is one of only four AI models supporting mission-critical operations on classified networks, and a Defense Department declaration tied the model to military operations, including recent strikes against Iran. The DOJ, xAI and the state of Mississippi all asked the court to dismiss the suit. SELC called the government’s argument “an unprecedented attack on the public’s ability to defend themselves from illegal pollution.”

This is the second of three episodes on the situation in Memphis and Southhaven, and what it portends about the future of the AI infrastructure boom in the United States and the political debates and power struggles surrounding it. Listen to the first—an interview with Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Neil Strebig—here.

A transcript is forthcoming.