A US federal judge has refused xAI’s request to throw out a Clean Air Act lawsuit over the gas turbines that power its Colossus 2 data centre. The ruling, in the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, was announced on 30 October by lawyers for the plaintiff, the NAACP.
The NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, says xAI runs dozens of gas turbines at a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, without the air permits the law requires. The plaintiffs allege the plant can emit more than 5,000 tons of nitrogen oxides a year, affecting communities in South Memphis and North Mississippi.
xAI argued that the turbines were mobile sources exempt from permitting, and that citizen lawsuits of this kind are unconstitutional. Judge Debra M. Brown rejected both arguments, finding that the plant “was not (and is not) exempted from permitting requirements”. A similar motion from the US Department of Justice was also denied.
The court has not yet ruled on the NAACP’s request for a preliminary injunction, so for now nothing has been ordered to shut down.
Why it matters: AI companies are building their own power plants to get data centres running faster than the grid allows. This case is an early test of whether that shortcut holds up under environmental law.