Elon Musk's xAI expanding Colossus facility footprint in Mississippi through land acquisition affecting local residents.

Shante Polk describes the noise from the power plant built across from her family's Southaven, Mississippi property as "standing near airport runways, but they never take off." Her once-quiet, wooded land now endures continuous industrial drone, round the clock. The source is a natural gas-turbine power plant supplying electricity to SpaceXAI's Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in the Memphis region—among the world's largest AI supercomputers, according to the company. Those turbines run continuously, and so does the noise.

Southaven homeowner Jason Haley recorded interior noise levels around 70 decibels inside his home, roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner running every hour of every day without pause. "The noise from Colossus II and its gas-burning turbines is like a form of torture," Haley told CNBC. Acoustics firm Roland, Woolworth & Associates found the plant's low-frequency turbine noise runs four to sixteen times louder than a quiet suburban neighborhood. Low-frequency sound does not bounce off walls so much as travel through them. A Whitehaven neighborhood resident living within a few hundred yards of Colossus 2 told the Memphis Flyer the drone makes it "hard to think clearly and even harder to fall asleep."

SpaceXAI deployed dozens of gas turbines to power the Colossus cluster while permanent grid connections and regulatory approvals were still being pursued, according to CNBC. The NAACP filed a federal lawsuit alleging SpaceXAI operated those turbines without required air permits, citing releases of nitrogen oxides and PM2.5—fine particles small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs—into nearby communities. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. sent a congressional letter calling the project a "massive health risk." Haley and other Southaven residents filed a separate class-action lawsuit accusing SpaceXAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech of creating a public nuisance through near-constant noise and vibrations, seeking damages and injunctive relief.

SpaceXAI stated in a July press release that it is investing millions of dollars in sound walls and silencers featuring "advanced quieting technologies." Residents report that one sound wall installed so far has provided little relief. A 70-decibel reading inside a family home at 3 a.m. renders such measures insufficient. The real fix requires a proper grid connection so mobile gas turbines can be retired, full air permitting with enforceable emissions limits, and community input before the next cluster is deployed—not after the lawsuits are filed.

This is not a Memphis-specific problem. The gas-powered xAI model is spreading to other regions, according to WEKU. How regulators and courts respond here will shape accountability for AI infrastructure everywhere. The central question is whether the neighbors of the next supercomputer get a seat at the table before the noise starts.