US Department of Justice Intervenes to Support xAI's Position in Data Center Gas Turbine Litigation

The U.S. Department of Defense states that xAI data centers powered by gas power plants are critical to national security and revealed that Grok was used to launch thousands of missiles in the Iran war.

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality stated in July that because the turbines are portable equipment, the plant is protected under the mobile pollution source provisions of the Clean Air Act. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) objected to this, seeking federal relief and claiming that the turbines' pollution "combined with already elevated ozone and nitrogen oxide pollution levels in the greater Memphis area" would cause harmful health impacts to the local community.

In May, the NAACP requested a preliminary injunction against the continued operation of the turbines.

Stanley argues that if the Colossus 2 data center shuts down due to lack of power from the Stanton Road plant, "xAI will lose the ability to train and develop future improved versions of Grok. If xAI is prevented from continuing to improve and upgrade Grok, including the Grok Gov model, the Department of Defense's ability to fulfill its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries will be compromised."

"The Grok Gov model provides capabilities unique to xAI and not found in other cutting-edge AI models," Stanley said. He mentioned the integration of Grok Gov with Maven Smart System (an AI-driven command and control platform) and disclosed that Grok was used in the Iran war.

He stated that the integration of Grok with MSS "enabled the U.S. military to deploy over 2,000 pieces of ammunition to 2,000 different targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Wrath, fully demonstrating the significant improvement in operational efficiency achieved by the Grok Gov model."

Stanley stated that in the modern warfare environment, "data center inference capability should not be viewed merely as commercial infrastructure, but rather as a long-term strategic tool necessary for maintaining our technological advantage relative to adversaries."

The Department of Justice also attached a letter from Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (Republican), who wrote that the NAACP "is seeking to significantly slow down or completely block the largest private investment in Mississippi history—an investment that has already created thousands of construction jobs and will create hundreds of long-term, high-paying jobs."

Environmental network organizations stated in a Wednesday statement that the Department of Justice's lawsuit "far exceeds the scope of a single data center," amounting to the Justice Department requesting federal courts to grant the executive branch broad "veto power" to overturn congressionally authorized citizen lawsuits when community enforcement conflicts with the government's political priorities.

Environmental network organizations wrote: "This government is deploying this broad legal theory to advance its AI and data center agenda. The EPA has made AI and data center expansion a core priority, including efforts to accelerate data center permitting and power generation, while simultaneously attempting to weaken pollution standards for coal and gas power plants as data centers drive new electricity demand."