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Definition: Project Colossus


An xAI datacenter for AI training (xAI is Elon Musk's AI company). Colossus is a fitting name because at an estimated total cost of $4 billion, Musk claims it will be the largest generative AI datacenter in the world.

Revitalizing an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner factory in Memphis, Tennessee, Project Colossus is expected to eventually house 200 thousand servers containing NVIDIA GPU circuits specialized for AI. This "Memphis Supercluster" was designed to train xAI's Grok-3 chatbot (see xAI). See GPU and AI datacenter.




200,000 Liquid Cooled AI Servers
In July 2024, after only four months, the datacenter went into operation with a third of the eventual 100,000 NVIDIA H100 chips for Phase I. Phase II adds 50,000 more H100s plus 50,000 H200s. SuperMicro's water cooling keeps the required temperature. See H100. (Image courtesy of xAI and Supermicro Computer, Inc.)







A Massive Network
Networking all this equipment is no simple feat. An RDMA fabric ties all servers together in one huge Ethernet running at 400 Gbps, which is 400 times faster than common local network speeds (see RDMA and Terabit Ethernet). (Images courtesy of xAI and Supermicro Computer, Inc.)






Launched in Only Four Months
Phase I requires 150 MW (megawatts) of electricity. Combined with 8 MW from the local grid, 14 transportable VoltaGrid generators were installed to launch the datacenter in July 2024 with a third of the H100s. To keep the power uniform, all electricity flows into batteries and then to the equipment. (Image courtesy of VoltaGrid LLC.)





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