Elon Musk's xAI Colossus 2 is nowhere near 1 gigawatt capacity (www.tomshardware.com)

Elon Musk's xAI announced the launch of its Colossus 2 data center, claiming it reached a groundbreaking 1 gigawatt (GW) capacity. However, recent satellite imagery from Epoch AI suggests that the facility only has a cooling capacity of 350 megawatts (MW), far short of the requirements needed to support its 550,000 Nvidia Blackwell AI accelerators at full power. This discrepancy raises questions about the timing and accuracy of Musk's announcement, as xAI is expected to reach the 1 GW milestone by May, contingent upon additional cooling and power infrastructure. For the AI/ML community, Colossus 2 represents a significant advancement in computational power, positioning itself as a more capable infrastructure for training advanced AI models compared to rivals like Amazon and OpenAI, even if it arrives later than initially promised. The importance of this development lies not just in its power consumption—potentially exceeding that of major cities like San Diego or Amsterdam—but also in the implications for AI research and development. The ability to support demanding AI workloads could catapult xAI to a leader in the field, emphasizing the need for advanced cooling and energy solutions within the rapidly evolving AI landscape.