FILE – Elon Musk speaks at the European Jewish Congress conference in Krakow, Poland, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Thursday, Feb. 29, alleging they betrayed the ChatGPT maker’s founding purpose of serving the interests of humanity, not profit. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The largest capital investment ever made by a new company in Memphis could break ground by the end of the year.
The big announcement on Wednesday was that xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, will soon be based in the Bluff City.
We already know that Musk is building a huge, lucrative company that could change Memphis as we know it.
But while this news is exciting, people have questions.
One of them is, “What is a Gigafactory of Computing?”
“I don’t want to say it’s just a very big computer, but that’s essentially what it is,” Meka Egwekwe said.
The world’s largest supercomputer is set to double, then quadruple in size in a facility known as the “Gigafactory of Compute” that will soon open in Memphis.
“A computing gigafactory will actually bring together hundreds or even thousands of processors to work together on very large computational problems,” Egwekwe said.
Egwekwe is executive director of Code Crew, a nonprofit that teaches computer science and AI to Memphis residents.
He told WREG that projects like this are exactly what he’s preparing his students for, and that the “xAI” announcement is a huge positive for the city.
“It puts Memphis on the map as a technology hub,” Egwekwe said. “Memphis has been a tech hub for a while now, but this multi-billion dollar grant will definitely have a big impact.”
It’s not clear how many jobs xAI will bring, but in the long term, Egwe says a project of this calibre could bring high-paying jobs and career opportunities not only to xAI, but to other big tech companies looking to set up shop in the city.
Egwekwe said Memphis is poised to join other high-tech cities like San Francisco, Austin and New York, thanks to its residents and the diverse population the project will bring.
“Memphis is well-equipped and ready for these projects,” Egwekwe said, “and, of course, Elon Musk agrees.”
The project still needs approval from several government agencies, but if approved it could open as soon as this year.
