xAI's Colossus 2 AI Goes Gigawatt‑Scale — EPA Alarm as Power Turbines Ruled Illegal

Elon Musk's xAI is under fire for illegally using dozens of methane gas turbines to power the Colossus data centres in Tennessee. The Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rule on Thursday, 15 January 2026, despite xAI's argument that it was exempt from regulations as the turbines were being used temporarily.

In June of 2025, xAI's Colossus data centre outside of Memphis faced a lawsuit for operating at least 35 natural gas turbines but failing to secure a permit for 20 of them, per a Tech Crunch report.

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The Southern Environmental Law Centre (SELC) wrote to xAI stating, 'Over the past year, xAI has installed and operated at least 35 combustion turbines and other sources of air pollution at the Colossus site without ever obtaining the necessary preconstruction or operating air permits', which served as a notice of intent to sue xAI for violating the Clean Air Act.

NAACP Director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Abre Conner said of xAI's violation of the Clean Air Act in July of 2025, 'Our communities, air, water and land are not playgrounds for billionaires chasing another buck.'

EPA's RULING

In the EPA's ruling, the policies governing the operation of gas turbines were amended, stating that operating these machines requires air permits, even when used on a temporary or portable basis. The new ruling by EPA places permitting the use of these turbines under federal law, per the Guardian.

Penalising companies that fail to comply has not been made clear. EPA's new ruling is celebrated by Memphis activists who have been going after xAI's turbines since their initial use, saying the data centre is responsible for more pollution in the community. Methane gas turbines have a reputation for causing asthma, and upper respiratory diseases, among others.

An EPA spokesperson told the Guardian, 'The agency estimates the final action will result in the net annual [nitrogen oxide] emission reductions of up to 296 tons by 2032.' Elon Musk, whose xAI and Grok require additional power from colossal data centres, still reportedly plans to expand its data centre. xAI's Colossus 1 alone uses 150 megawatts of electricity at full capacity.

xAI's Colossus

xAI said the Colossus was built within just 122 days and has the most powerful AI training system in the world. 'We're running the world's biggest supercomputer, Colossus. Built in 122 days — outpacing every estimate — it was the most powerful AI training system yet. Then we doubled it in 92 days to 200k GPUs. This is just the beginning.'

'Progress in AI is driven by compute and no one has come close to building at this magnitude and speed', xAI's official site said about the four-month construction, which they were told would take 24 months.

Commenced in March of 2025, the Colossus 2 also utilises dozens of gas turbines. Semi Analysis reports the inception of the Colossus 2 scales from the pushback xAI was receiving from Memphis, leading xAI to develop a Gigawatt-scale energy hub in Mississippi. The state later granted xAI with temporary approval to run its gas turbines without a permit for up to 12 months. xAI uses rental turbines from NYSE-listed Solaris Energy Infrastructure.