xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, will decommission all 69 temporary gas turbines powering its Colossus data centers on the Tennessee-Mississippi border by July 2027.
The turbines were a stopgap while xAI builds a permanent 1.2-gigawatt power plant. Mobile units will be shut down and removed as new energy infrastructure comes online. The Colossus facility gained attention for deploying infrastructure for 100,000 NVIDIA H200 AI accelerators in just 19 days. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said projects of that scale normally take several years.
The temporary arrangement drew controversy. Local residents and environmental groups alleged the turbines operated without required permits and degraded air quality in the region. xAI maintained their temporary status exempted them from some regulations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said permits were still required, and the NAACP filed a lawsuit challenging their legality. The U.S. Department of Justice warned that an immediate shutdown could disrupt Colossus Phase 2, which handles critical tasks.
xAI has now reached an agreement with Mississippi’s Department of Environmental Quality. The permanent plant will operate under a Clean Air Act permit, and xAI has committed to installing additional emissions controls on the turbines until they are retired.
