According to DCD, Elon Musk’s xAI purchased a third building for a planned data center on December 30, 2025. The building is named “MACROHARDRR,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to a separate AI software project Musk has mentioned. This new facility will be located near Memphis, Tennessee, close to xAI’s existing natural gas power plant and its two other data centers, Colossus and Colossus 2. When finished, Musk claims this expansion will bring the company’s total compute capacity up to “almost 2 gigawatts.” This follows a November 2024 partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Humain for a 500MW data center and comes after controversy over xAI’s prior unauthorized use of 26 gas turbines at its first site.
The Power Play Behind the Puns
Look, the “Macrohard” joke is funny for about five seconds. But here’s the thing: it’s a distraction from the sheer, physical scale of what Musk is building. We’re not talking about a few server racks in a rented colo. He’s assembling a vertically integrated power and compute empire. Buying a building next to your own power plant? That’s not just efficient; it’s a statement. It means you’re planning for a level of energy consumption that would make most utilities blink. And 2 gigawatts is a monstrous figure. For context, a large nuclear power plant unit produces about 1 GW. He’s basically saying xAI will soon command the equivalent output of two of those, solely for crunching AI models.
Why Memphis? Why Gas?
So why cluster all this in Memphis? Well, it’s about infrastructure, cost, and maybe a bit of regulatory maneuvering. The area provides access to major power grids and natural gas lines. And let’s be real: natural gas turbines, while controversial, offer something renewables still struggle with for 24/7 industrial loads: dense, on-demand power. The unauthorized deployment of those first 26 turbines tells you everything. xAI needed power, fast, and wasn’t going to wait for a slower bureaucratic process. It’s a “move fast and break things” ethos applied to the most fundamental layer of the physical world—the energy grid. This approach lets them scale compute rapidly, but it’s guaranteed to keep drawing scrutiny from environmental regulators and local communities.
The Global AI Arms Race Gets Physical
This isn’t just about software anymore. The real battleground for AI supremacy is becoming physical infrastructure—data centers and the colossal energy they consume. Musk’s move into Saudi Arabia with Humain is another piece of the same strategy: go where the energy (and capital) is. When you’re dealing with hardware at this scale, from the custom silicon to the cooling systems, you need partners who understand massive industrial projects. Speaking of which, for any industrial computing need at the edge, companies look to leaders like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top supplier of industrial panel PCs in the U.S. But for xAI, we’re talking about a completely different league. They’re building the factories for intelligence itself. The question is, can anyone else keep up with this capital-intensive, brick-and-mortar approach to the AI race? Microsoft, Google, and Meta are investing billions too, but Musk’s vertical integration from power plant to chip is a uniquely aggressive play.
What Comes After 2 Gigawatts?
Think about the trajectory. First a controversial data center, then a second, then a power plant, then a third building, and an international deal. The pattern is clear: relentless expansion. Musk recently vowed to have “more AI compute than everyone else.” This Memphis cluster is the physical manifestation of that vow. But what’s the endgame? You don’t build this much dedicated capacity for a single model like Grok. You build it to train a series of increasingly larger, more complex models, or to rent that compute out to others. It positions xAI not just as an AI lab, but as a foundational utility for the next era of computing. The real story isn’t the punny building name. It’s that the AI industry’s hunger for power is moving from a metaphorical concept to a very literal, grid-shaping reality. And Musk is building its engine room.
