xAI Accelerates Construction of 'World's Largest' Data Center... Purchases 1 Million Square Meter Site

xAI, an artificial intelligence company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has purchased approximately 1 million square meters of land to expand its data center. This is interpreted as an intention to further expand the data center already under construction as the world's largest to counter OpenAI. The level of mutual checks between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, two prominent rivals in the US tech industry, is expected to intensify further.

On the 7th, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce in Tennessee announced that xAI had purchased a 1 million square meter plot of land in southwest Memphis. Infrastructure that will complement xAI's current 2.11 million square meter data center 'Colossus' under construction will reportedly be built on this site. Colossus is already considered the world's largest data center based on its current construction scale, and now its area will be expanded by approximately 1.5 times. xAI released a statement saying, "This real estate acquisition will be the catalyst for xAI to lead AI innovation."

xAI has planned to expand the number of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) that make up Colossus from the current 100,000 to 1 million. Musk has ambitions to build a vast empire by connecting the AI model 'Grok,' trained in a world-class data center, with his other businesses such as X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX. To this end, xAI recently signed a $5 billion (approximately 7.2 trillion won) GPU server purchase contract with Dell. The same goes for the $10 billion (approximately 14.5 trillion won) fundraising currently underway. xAI raised $5 billion in December last year, increasing its corporate value to $45 billion (approximately 65 trillion won), and if this investment is successful, its corporate value will soar to $75 billion (approximately 108 trillion won).

The tech industry views xAI's decision as a move to counter OpenAI, which is leading the 'Stargate' AI infrastructure expansion project under the Donald Trump administration. In January, CEO Musk criticized OpenAI's participation in Stargate, saying, "They don't have money." CEO Altman immediately refuted this, saying, "As you know, that's a lie." Last month, Musk provoked Altman by offering to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion, to which Altman responded, "If you want, I'll buy X for $9.74 billion," escalating the tension between the two.

Meanwhile, Tesla's stock price, led by Musk along with xAI, has fallen for seven consecutive weeks. On the 7th, Tesla's stock price closed at $262.67, down 0.3% from the previous trading day on the New York Stock Exchange. This is the lowest level since November 5 last year when the US presidential election was held, and has fallen 44% compared to the all-time high of $479.86 on December 17 last year.

Silicon Valley=Special Correspondent Young-chan Song 0full@hankyung.com