If you've been keeping your finger on the pulse of AI developments, you'll know that there's growing concern about meeting the power demands of the data centers that train and run AI inference. Elon Musk's Colossus supercomputer that powers Grok, xAI's alternative to ChatGPT, tackles this by using over 30 methane gas turbine stations, but the construction has incurred fierce criticism over its impact on local air quality.
When Colossus fired up for the first time last year, it was already making headlines. Partly because it took a mere three months to build, but also because its appetite for water and electricity was raising eyebrows. In the case of the latter, the system uses anywhere between 50 and 150 MW of power, and in order to meet that demand, xAI installed a number of methane-burning gas turbines.
