Elon Musk's xAI acquired a third building on December 30 to expand its Colossus supercomputer cluster, pushing total training capacity toward 2 gigawatts of compute power. The new facility, named MACROHARDRR, will serve as a supersized data center outside Memphis, Tennessee.
xAI plans to convert the warehouse into a data center in 2026, according to property records cited by The Information. The expansion aims to house at least 1 million graphics processing units in the Colossus cluster, which the company describes as the world's largest AI training system.
The third building joins existing facilities near Southaven, Mississippi, according to TechRepublic. Both the new data center and Colossus 2, which is still under construction, are located near a natural gas power plant xAI is building in the area.
Musk's announcement on X positions xAI to compete more aggressively with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. The 2-gigawatt capacity would place xAI among the most energy-intensive AI operations globally, consuming roughly enough power for 1.5 million US homes.
Earlier this year, Musk said Colossus 2 is expected to eventually house around 550,000 Nvidia chips. The buildout would cost tens of billions of dollars, with xAI reportedly in talks to raise $20 billion in debt and equity in 2025.
Environmental activists have criticized the expansion due to massive energy consumption. To address concerns, xAI is building an $80 million wastewater treatment center to reuse approximately 13 million gallons of water daily.
The MACROHARDRR name appears to be a play on Microsoft's name, though Musk did not disclose the exact location. The expansion comes as xAI's Grok chatbot, integrated with X, competes directly with established AI products from OpenAI and Anthropic.
xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the environmental impact or further expansion details. The company's valuation could reach $170 billion to $230 billion range with the additional fundraising, according to TechRepublic.
