Musk confirms fourth SpaceXAI data center in Memphis as company agrees to remove 'illegal' gas turbines

Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceXAI is building a fourth data center in Memphis, Tennessee, as the company simultaneously moves to dismantle 69 natural gas turbines that have powered its existing facilities in the area. The confirmation came in response to drone footage posted on X, Musk's social media platform, showing a new building under construction at the company's Tulane Road complex near the Tennessee-Mississippi border.

The new facility, which Musk dubbed "Minihard," will mirror the scale of the existing "Macroharder" building, housing 220,000 NVIDIA GB300 processors with 800-gigabit NICs, but in a denser and more efficient configuration, according to Musk's post. The billionaire has previously nicknamed the two existing data centers on the site "Macrohard" and "Macroharder," an apparent jab at Microsoft.

The development underscores the rapid expansion of SpaceXAI's AI infrastructure footprint in the Memphis region. The company, formerly known as xAI, began building data centers there in 2024 to house Colossus, the supercomputer powering its Grok AI chatbot. Since being folded into Musk's aerospace venture SpaceX, the unit has expanded into neocloud services, renting capacity to external clients including Anthropic.

SpaceXAI had applied for a building permit for a 312,000 sq ft (28,985 sqm) structure costing $659 million in March, according to DCD reporting at the time. The four-story building, approximately 75 feet high, had not yet been assigned a use, though the company's IPO prospectus earlier this year indicated plans to bring online at least 220,000 additional GB300 processors and over 400MW of compute capacity in the next phase of expansion at Colossus 2.

Whether the company can secure sufficient power for the additional deployment remains an open question. The 220,000-strong GB300 installation would likely require more than 400MW, yet satellite imagery from January reportedly showed cooling equipment on site capable of managing only 350MW. SpaceXAI claims to have 1GW of compute power across its Memphis data centers, but the gap between stated capacity and installed infrastructure has drawn scrutiny from industry observers.

Meanwhile, the company has agreed to remove all 69 temporary mobile gas turbines from the site over the next year, following legal challenges from environmental campaigners who alleged the units were installed without proper permits and in violation of the Clean Air Act. The NAACP filed a complaint in April against xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech, claiming that 27 methane gas turbines powering the Colossus 2 data center were operating illegally.

SpaceXAI said it has "entered into an agreed order with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality establishing a fixed removal timeline for all 69 of the temporary, mobile turbines." The removal will begin next month, though the company is replacing them with a permanent 1.2GW power plant comprising 41 gas turbines, which received permitting approval in March. As such, local residents may notice little change in the facility's emissions profile.

"We care deeply about being good neighbors and we regularly reconfigure power operations to reduce noise from the facility and minimize our impact on the local community," the company said in a statement.

The dispute over the turbines has been a persistent point of tension in Memphis, where campaigners argue that the portable natural gas generators have degraded air quality in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. The company has defended its use of the turbines as a necessary measure to bring data center capacity online quickly in a highly competitive market.

The confirmation of the fourth data center signals that SpaceXAI remains committed to its Memphis hub despite the regulatory friction. The company also operates a separate facility in the city at a former Electrolux factory on Paul Lowry Road, and is reportedly evaluating a potential campus in Texas. With AI workloads continuing to surge, the ability to rapidly deploy compute infrastructure has become a strategic priority for hyperscale operators, even as local communities push back on the environmental costs.