Health care in your locality The Memphis Department of Transportation has issued Elon Musk’s xAI a permit that allows it to operate the gas-turbines powering the Grok chatbot. This permit was issued amid intense community protests and an upcoming lawsuit accusing the company of violating the Clean Air Act.
Shelby County Health Department releases its annual report air permit The xAI Project received hundreds of comments from the public on Wednesday. It was announced that first reported The Daily Memphian
Memphis Chamber of Commerce – June 2016 announced It was announced that xAI has chosen Memphis, Tennessee to be the location for building its new supercomputer. Website of the company boasts The company was able build Colossus in only 122 working days. The company’s ability to build the supercomputer in 122 days was partly due to its mobile gas engines. began installing The campus is the location of a former industrial plant.
Colossus helped xAI catch up quickly with competitors OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, in terms of building the most advanced artificial intelligence. The world’s biggest supercomputer was constructed using 100,000 Nvidia GPUs.
xAI’s Memphis campus, known as Boxtown, is situated in a community that has historically been plagued by industrial pollution. The gas turbines that xAI uses in Memphis are a major source of pollution, such as nitrogen oxides. create smog. Memphis has already some of the highest child asthma rates in Tennessee. Residents of the area have met to protest against xAI’s project ever since it began operating.
“I am horrified but not surprised,” KeShaun Patterson, leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution. “The flagrant violation of the Clean Air Act and the disregard for our human right to clean air, by xAI’s burning of illegal methane turbines, has been stamped as permissible by the Shelby County Health Department. Over 1,000 people submitted public comments demanding protection and got passed over for a billionaire’s ambitious experiment.”
Clean Air Act “major” sources of emissions—like a cluster of gas turbines—need a permit, known as a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit. Shelby County Health Department officials, however, disagree. told In August local journalists reported that this wasn’t needed for xAI because its turbines aren’t permanent. xAI applied for a Shelby County Health Department permit in January after mounting local resistance.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and NAACP teamed up last month to create the Southern Environmental Law Center. announced That they intend to sue xAI because of violations of the Clean Air Act.
“xAI’s decision to install and operate dozens of polluting gas turbines without any permits or public oversight is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act,” Patrick Anderson, senior SELC lawyer and author of a recent press release. “Over the last year, these turbines have pumped out pollution that threatens the health of Memphis families. This notice paves the way for a lawsuit that can hold xAI accountable for its unlawful refusal to get permits for its gas turbines.”
