The NAACP is asking on native officers to halt operations at Colossus, the “supercomputer” facility operated by Elon Musk’s xAI in South Memphis.
As reported in NBC News, leaders from the civil rights group despatched a letter Thursday to the Shelby County Health Department and Memphis Light Gas and Water criticizing the organizations’ “lackadaisical strategy to the operation of this soiled information middle” and calling on them to “concern an emergency order for xAI to cease operations fully” — or if there’s no order, to at the least cite and cease the corporate from allegedly violating clear air legal guidelines.
The letter expressed specific considerations across the gasoline generators that xAI runs to energy Colossus. The firm has utilized for a allow to proceed working 15 gasoline generators on the facility, though the NAACP stated authorities have “allowed xAI to function at the least 35 gasoline generators with none allowing” over the previous 12 months. City officers have beforehand stated xAI didn’t want permits for the generators’ first 12 months of use.
These generators reportedly emit hazardous air pollution, together with formaldehyde, at ranges exceeding EPA limits. The NAACP’s letter additionally pointed to the generators’ nitrogen-oxide emissions.
Noting that the Colossus facility is positioned close to South Memphis’ Boxtown neighborhood, which the letter described as a “traditionally Black neighborhood,” the NAACP stated the placement perpetuates “the development of industries including air pollution to communities who don’t trigger the issue.”
“Instead of [the Shelby County Health Department] working to scale back well being points identified within the space together with that most cancers dangers are already 4 occasions the nationwide common, it has allowed xAI to function above the regulation,” the NAACP added.
The NAACP’s letter is addressed to Shelby County Health Department Director Michelle Taylor, in addition to Memphis Light Gas and Water’s commissioners; Taylor is leaving her position in Shelby County to develop into the commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.
TechCrunch has reached out to the NAACP and xAI for remark. A spokesperson for Memphis Light Gas and Water informed NBC News that it had not but acquired the NAACP letter.
