xAI has installed 19 additional natural gas turbines at its Colossus 2 data center campus in Southaven, Mississippi between late March and early May, bringing the on-site total to 46 turbines, according to internal Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality emails obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The expansion has added more than 500 megawatts of gas-fired generation since mid-March. Eight of the new turbines, representing over 200 megawatts, were installed after the NAACP filed a Clean Air Act lawsuit against the company in April.
The lawsuit, brought by the NAACP alongside the SELC and Earthjustice, alleges xAI has been running a "personal power plant" by operating 27 gas turbines at Southaven without the necessary permits. Those 27 original turbines represent 495 megawatts of capacity, which the NAACP's filing says is enough to power 400,000 homes. Last week, the NAACP filed for an emergency injunction asking the court to shut down the turbines at Colossus 2.
xAI responded that the data centers powered by the turbines "are essential to the operation of cutting-edge artificial intelligence and other computing tools used by the U.S. government and millions of users worldwide, every day. But those data centers cannot currently function, and would have to precipitously shut down, without the temporary power generation equipment in question." The company has not commented further on whether the newly installed turbines fall under any existing permit.
Key facts
- 01xAI installed 19 portable gas turbines at Colossus 2 in Southaven, Mississippi between late March and early May, bringing the total to 46.
- 02More than 500 megawatts of natural gas turbines have been added at the site since mid-March, per emails obtained by the SELC.
- 03Eight of the 19 new turbines, representing over 200 MW, were installed after the NAACP's April lawsuit was filed.
- 04MDEQ's March air permit covers 41 turbines; the original 27 turbines in the lawsuit represent 495 MW, enough to power 400,000 homes.
- 05Anthropic has signed an agreement to use all computing resources at Colossus 1, while xAI's training has moved to Colossus 2.
The MDEQ granted an air permit in March covering 41 turbines at the Southaven site, but the SELC says the 27 turbines named in its lawsuit, along with the units installed in recent months, are not part of that permit. Neither xAI nor the MDEQ has clarified whether the turbines listed in the emails are covered. Drone footage and public records reported by Floodlight showed multiple turbines running at the site in the weeks before the March permit was granted.
“Eight of the 19 new turbines, representing more than 200 megawatts of output, were installed after the NAACP filed suit in April alleging Clean Air Act violations.”— Jaeden Schafer
Regulators in both Mississippi and Tennessee have taken the position that because xAI's turbines are classified as portable rather than stationary, the company has up to a year to operate them without permits under the Clean Air Act. MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told Mississippi Today that "as indicated by the facility, all portable/temporary turbines are equipped with control technology to minimize emissions," and that the agency "is evaluating the situation and will make the facility aware as to when it can no longer bring additional portable/temporary turbines on-site."
Ben Grillot, a lawyer with the SELC, says the organization spotted six additional turbines during an April drone flyover and only learned the true count of 19 new units after obtaining the MDEQ emails. "It's absolutely crazy," Grillot says of the additions. The records request was filed weeks before the count came to light.
The Southaven site is the second xAI campus to face this fight. Colossus 1, located across the state border in Memphis, Tennessee, drew criticism in 2024 after residents of Boxtown, a historically Black neighborhood with long-standing air-quality problems, alleged that turbines were running without a permit. Memphis' local health department granted a turbine permit for Colossus 1 last July despite community opposition.
Both Colossus sites are connected to local power grids but were designed to rely heavily on on-site gas generation. The buildout reflects the broader pattern across the industry: AI training clusters now require generation capacity at a scale that exceeds what utilities can deliver on the timelines hyperscalers want. xAI's approach has been to install portable turbines first and resolve permitting questions on a parallel track.
The same day the NAACP filed for its emergency injunction, Anthropic announced an agreement to use all the computing resources at Colossus 1. In a post on X, Elon Musk said training for SpaceXAI, the entity formed by this year's merger of SpaceX and xAI, had "already moved" to Colossus 2. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the timing.
Abre' Conner, the NAACP's director of environmental and climate justice, told WIRED that "any company that disregards the obvious environmental and health concerns of Black communities to supposedly power a future that will help us all is sending a clear message about who it intends to serve in that future." She added, "As we have done since xAI forced its way into Memphis, we will continue to stand with the communities most impacted by these decisions." xAI's court filing argues that an immediate shutdown would force its data centers offline.
The legal question turns on how the Clean Air Act treats portable equipment, an interpretation MDEQ and Tennessee regulators have so far accepted in xAI's favor. The emergency injunction motion will test whether a court agrees, or whether the one-year window applies on a per-unit basis as new turbines arrive. xAI has not yet filed a substantive response to the injunction motion beyond its essential-operations argument.
For the AI infrastructure market, the Colossus 2 fight is a preview of the permitting and community-relations bottleneck that will define the next round of buildouts. The hyperscalers racing to stand up gigawatt-scale clusters have to choose between waiting for grid upgrades, signing long-dated PPAs, or doing what xAI has done at Southaven: install generation first and litigate the framework after. The outcome of the NAACP's injunction motion will tell every other operator how much runway that third path actually has.
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