Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has added 19 natural gas turbines to its second data center campus in Southaven, Mississippi, over the past two months, according to internal emails obtained by WIRED. The expansion occurs while xAI is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and several environmental advocacy groups, which alleges the company is violating the Clean Air Act by operating more than two dozen turbines without appropriate air permits.
Emails between the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and Trinity Consultants, obtained via public records requests by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), reveal that xAI installed 19 portable gas turbines between late March and early May. This brings the facility’s total to 46 operating turbines. A spreadsheet attached to the correspondence indicates that xAI has added over 500 megawatts of natural gas power capacity since mid-March.
The expansion at the site, dubbed Colossus 2, highlights the massive energy requirements of modern AI training clusters. MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told local media that while the facility claims its portable turbines use emission-control technology, the agency is still evaluating when xAI must stop bringing additional units on-site. Legal representatives from SELC noted that eight of the 19 new turbines, representing 200 megawatts of output, were installed specifically after the lawsuit was filed in April.
This pattern echoes issues at xAI’s "Colossus 1" facility in Memphis, Tennessee, which faced significant community backlash in 2024 for operating without permits in a historically Black neighborhood. Regulators in both states have currently allowed the operations under a legal loophole: because the turbines are classified as non-stationary or portable, the Clean Air Act permits them to run for up to a year without formal environmental permits.
