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Elon Musk's xAI Announces "Sustainable" Cooling Technology for Memphis Data Center Amid Environmental Criticism
ByAinvest
Friday, Jul 18, 2025 8:09 am ET1min read
Elon Musk's xAI unveiled a "sustainable" cooling system for its Memphis data center using a ceramic membrane bioreactor to treat untreated wastewater. The move comes after criticism from environmentalists and rights groups for its gas-burning turbines, which increase air pollution and disproportionately affect Black-majority communities. The technology is designed to supply 13 million gallons of cooling water per day to xAI's Colossus Supercomputer facility.
Elon Musk-led artificial intelligence company, xAI, has unveiled a new sustainable cooling system for its Memphis data center. The company announced the construction of the world's largest ceramic membrane bioreactor (MBR) to sustainably supply 13 million gallons per day of cooling water to its Colossus Supercomputer facility [1].The ceramic membrane bioreactor combines microfiltration or ultrafiltration with biological wastewater treatment processes to filter and treat wastewater. xAI plans to use untreated wastewater from a nearby wastewater treatment plant to cool the data center, addressing criticism from environmentalists and rights groups for its previous use of gas-burning turbines [2].
The announcement comes after xAI faced criticism for its gas-burning turbines, which were seen as increasing air pollution and disproportionately affecting Black-majority communities in Memphis. The new cooling system aims to mitigate these issues by utilizing a more environmentally friendly and sustainable approach to cooling.
Additionally, xAI recently announced the Grok for Government program, which involves winning over $200M worth of defense contracts from the Pentagon to scale the U.S. defense's AI capabilities. Grok is also being offered on all Tesla Inc. TSLA vehicles in the U.S., with an Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s AMD Ryzen chipset powering the onboard vehicle computer [3].
References:
[1] https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/25/07/46487316/elon-musks-xai-unveils-sustainable-way-to-cool-memphis-data-center-amid-criticism-from-environmental-rights-groups
[2] https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/25/07/46487316/elon-musks-xai-unveils-sustainable-way-to-cool-memphis-data-center-amid-criticism-from-environmental-rights-groups
[3] https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/25/07/46487316/elon-musks-xai-unveils-sustainable-way-to-cool-memphis-data-center-amid-criticism-from-environmental-rights-groups
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