Elon Musk details expansion plans for Memphis AI cluster, targeting over 1 million GPUs

Elon Musk laid out a concrete timeline for scaling up the Colossus 2 AI computing cluster in the Memphis, Tennessee and Southaven, Mississippi corridor, committing to more than doubling the facility’s Nvidia chip count before the end of 2026. The expansion would push the cluster toward more than 1.1 million H100-equivalent accelerators.

The announcement, made on September 25, puts a sharp point on what has been one of the most aggressive AI infrastructure buildouts in history. The Memphis-area cluster had already hit roughly 1 GW of AI compute capacity by mid-2026, and the full Colossus 2 buildout is modeled for an IT load of around 946 MW.

Big clients, bigger energy bills

The scale of the operation has already attracted heavyweight tenants. Google signed a contract in June 2026 for approximately 110,000 GPUs, paying a rate of $920 million per month from October 2026 through June 2029. Anthropic has also secured capacity at the facility.

The cluster now integrates multiple sites, including the original Colossus 1 facility alongside Colossus 2 and newer additions referred to as Minihard and Macrohardrr.

Powering the beast

Keeping a gigawatt-scale AI cluster humming requires serious energy infrastructure, and the current setup relies on a patchwork solution. The facility is primarily powered by temporary gas turbines and Tesla Megapacks, essentially treating battery storage as a bridge while permanent infrastructure catches up to the pace of GPU deployment.

A permanent 1.2 GW gas-fired power plant is under construction in Southaven. That plant is designed to replace the temporary generation equipment and provide a more stable, long-term energy foundation for the cluster’s operations.

Regulators have ordered the phase-out of 69 temporary turbines by mid-2027, responding to local concerns about emissions, noise, and the broader sustainability of running portable generators in a residential-adjacent area.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.