It appears that Elon Musk’s xAI is looking to build one of the world’s most advanced supercomputers in the United States in Memphis, Tennessee. The upcoming project was confirmed in a press conference on Wednesday that was held by the Greater Memphis Chamber. 

As noted in a report from the Memphis Business Journal, xAI would be building its supercomputer at the 785,000-square-foot former Electrolux Memphis facility located at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road in Southwest Memphis. After its closure in 2022, Phoenix Investors paid $35 million for the Electrolux building, which was built on a 216-acre plot of land.

In a press release, the Greater Memphis Chamber noted that xAI’s multi-billion-dollar supercomputer project, which is also dubbed the “Gigafactory of Compute,” would represent the city’s largest capital investment by a new-to-market company in Memphis history. United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) welcomed the project in a post on X. 

“I’m pleased to welcome xAI to Tennessee and congratulate Elon Musk on this exciting new initiative. This investment corroborates our state’s position as a leader in technological advances and discoveries and will expand our Artificial Intelligence capabilities to solve complex science and security problems. With this project, Tennessee will remain at the forefront of AI at a critical time for this rapidly evolving field of research,” Hagerty wrote.

Ted Townsend, President & CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber shared his excitement about the supercomputer project. He also praised the quick work that was done by officials to ensure that xAI made Memphis the top choice for its supercomputer’s location. 

“Our Chamber is built for this. In less than three weeks, the Chamber’s economic development team demonstrated remarkable coordination, swiftly providing solutions and rallying partners faster than any other community. From the initial three weeks until today, Memphis emerged as a global nexus where velocity meets potency, which are attractive attributes to the xAI team,” Townsend said. 

Memphis Mayor Paul Young shared the same sentiments. “Memphis is a city of innovators, so it’s no surprise that it feels like home to those looking to change the world. We get things done here. We have great partners at the Greater Memphis Chamber and MLGW who were ready to make this happen. We had an ideal site, ripe for investment. And we had the power of our people who created new and innovative processes to keep up with the pace required to land this transformational project,” Young noted.

Credit: Teslarati