Elon Musk’s xAI Gigafactory Secures 150MW Power Boost, Igniting Concerns Over Tennessee Valley’s Energy Supply
Elon Musk’s ‘Gigafactory of Compute,’ the xAI Colossus, received approval from the Tennessee Valley Authority in early November to receive 150MW from the state’s power grid. This increases the site’s initial supply of 8MW by almost twenty times, triggering concerns from local stakeholders about how this much power demand from xAI would impact supply reliability and power prices across the Tennessee Valley. Furthermore, Power Grid International reports that Elon plans to double the site’s computing capacity, doubling the facility’s energy requirements.
xAI spent a Herculean effort to put up this supercomputer, which took the company only 19 days to set up (versus the four years it usually takes, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang). However, the site only had 8MW available at the time of its opening in July. So, Musk used massive portable power generators to meet the company’s needs. While Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) upgraded the existing substation to 50MW over the summer, running all 100,000 GPUs concurrently on the site is insufficient.
Experts estimate that Musk needs 155MW to run 100,000 GPUs, so his 150-MW request for the xAI site is conservative. Nevertheless, some people are concerned about the impact of such a demand on the state’s power supply.
“We are alarmed that the TVA Board rubberstamped xAI’s request for power without studying the impact it will have on local communities,” says Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Amanda Garcia. “Last year, TVA questioned power reliability and proposed a new dirty gas plant in South Memphis, and today, Board members expressed concern about the impact large industrial energy users have on power bills across the Tennessee Valley. TVA should be prioritizing families over data centers like xAI.”
xAI88X: The Future of AI-Powered Crypto
There are rumors circulating about Elon Musk’s potential involvement in a crypto project under the xAI88X Token brand could harness AI for blockchain or crypto innovations. While details are scarce, this initiative may explore AI’s role in creating more secure, efficient, or decentralized financial ecosystems. If this aligns with Musk’s other ventures, it may focus on enhancing transaction transparency and scalability using AI-driven technology.
For insights, you may consider the possibility of Musk sharing such a project on X or through announcements from xAI88X. This mystery project has certainly piqued industry curiosity.
Elon Musk called OpenAI ‘evil’ for telling investors not to fund his company and other rivals
Elon Musk is once again throwing shots at the artificial intelligence company he co-founded.
OpenAI, which Musk co-founded with CEO Sam Altman and 9 other people in 2015, said on Wednesday that it completed a record funding round of $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation, making it the most valuable startup in the world.
That funding round, which included big-name investors like Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia, had a stipulation that Musk isn’t so happy with: Don’t support OpenAI’s rivals.
- OpenAI just secured $6.6 billion in its latest funding round.
- The company asked investors not to back its rivals like Elon Musk’s xAI, per Reuters.
- Musk, who is in an ongoing feud with OpenAI, called the company “evil.”
Elon Musk is once again throwing shots at the artificial intelligence company he co-founded.
OpenAI, which Musk co-founded with CEO Sam Altman and 9 other people in 2015, said on Wednesday that it completed a record funding round of $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation, making it the most valuable startup in the world.
That funding round, which included big-name investors like Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia, had a stipulation that Musk isn’t so happy with: Don’t support OpenAI’s rivals.
According to anonymous sources speaking with Reuters, OpenAI asked investors for an exclusive funding agreement, in which they would refrain from backing five of its competitors.
The list, according to the report, was Perplexity, Glean, Anthropic, Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence, and Musk’s xAI, which developed Grok.
The Financial Times also reported that OpenAI sought exclusivity.
On Wednesday, Musk responded to posts on X criticizing OpenAI’s request. He twice wrote, “OpenAI is evil.”
After leaving OpenAI in 2018, Musk’s relationship with the company and Altman became increasingly combative.
In February 2020, Musk criticized the company for a lack of transparency and commitment to safety.
In March, Musk accused the company in a lawsuit of violating its founding principle of building AI that benefits humanity. He later dropped the suit.
In August, Musk filed another lawsuit against OpenAI, this time arguing that the executives “deceived” him into cofounding the company.
Musk and a spokesperson for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
While the request for an exclusive funding round is rare, it’s not unprecedented, according to venture capitalists who spoke with the FT.
Uber and Lyft, for example, asked investors not to back their rivals for six months to a year during fundraising rounds well before their initial public offerings, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015.
Some of OpenAI’s investors have already backed other AI startups. SoftBank, for one, has been doubling down on hardware and software after a string of disastrous pre-pandemic bets, like WeWork.
Elon Musk set up 100,000 Nvidia H200 GPUs in 19 days – Jensen says process normally takes 4 years
The GPUs were all part of an xAI super computer.
Elon Musk and the team behind xAI have achieved an engineering marvel, setting up a supercluster of 100,000 H200 Blackwell GPUs in a whopping 19 days. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the story of Elon Musk’s incredible installation prowess with members of the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley on X.
Huang describes Musk’s 19-day escapade with awe and respect, calling the effort “superhuman”. The team at xAI purportedly went from the “concept” phase to full-ready compatibility with Nvidia’s “gear” in less than three weeks. This includes running xAI’s first AI training run on the newly built supercluster as well.
Elon Musk is super human. What would take everyone else a year, only took him 19 days.
