Artificial intelligence behemoth Anthropic is taking over all of the computing capacity at a data center in Memphis, Tennessee, that has repeatedly come under fire for its environmental impacts.
Owned by Elon Musk’s xAI, the Colossus 1 data center has been the subject of lawsuits and a congressional probe accusing the company of skirting Clean Air Act requirements. When the data center came online in 2024, it was initially powered by more than 30 tractor-trailer-sized gas turbines. Those operated for nearly a year without pollution controls or Clean Air Act permits, something environmental groups have argued in a lawsuit violates the law.
More recently, Musk has come under fire for a decision to delay work on a promised water reuse facility to supply the data center, which will now continue to rely on Memphis’ drinking water resources to help cool the supercomputing chips housed inside.
On Wednesday, Anthropic announced it had reached a deal with xAI parent company SpaceX “to use all of the compute capacity” at Colossus 1 for its chatbot, Claude.
