"The Genius Launches a New Supercomputer
The AI company xAI, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has launched the supercomputer "Colossus" designed to train the large language model known as Grok. This project aims to compete with OpenAI's popular AI platform, ChatGPT-4.
xAI's new data center is located in Tennessee and houses 100,000 standard Nvidia Hopper H100 processors, surpassing any other individual AI computing cluster. Musk described Colossus as "the world's most powerful AI training system," noting that this achievement was "completed in just 122 days."
Musk expects to double Colossus's computing capacity within months, once he can acquire 50,000 of Nvidia's newer, more advanced H200 chips. Several major tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, are competing to secure these valuable chips.
Last July, Musk stated that he hopes to launch Grok-3 by December, expecting it to be "the world's most powerful AI at that point." An early beta version of Grok-2 was released to users last month, after being trained on only about 15,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs.
The supercomputer project has generated significant interest in Memphis, due to the speed with which city officials approved the project. Among the main concerns is the pressure it might place on city resources, with estimates suggesting it will require up to one million gallons of water daily for cooling and consume up to 150 megawatts of power