Macrohard-branded Colossus 2 data center a nod to Musk’s AI project to challenge Microsoft

How much will this feat cost and can he really pay for it all?

Elon Musk took to social media to claim that xAI, his pet AI project, will have more computing power than everyone else in the world combined in less than five years. The billionaire said this in response to an X post that says xAI is the “best team to join if you want to innovate,” specifically mentioning efficiency (intelligence per watt/mass) and scale (total harnessed energy/matter). The post Musk was responding to also shared the assessment of semiconductor industry research group SemiAnalysis, saying that xAI painting “Macrohard” on the roof of its Colossus 2 data center shows how serious it is in challenging Microsoft’s dominance.

Macrohard is Musk’s tongue-in-cheek name for his project to build a software company from the ground up solely using AI. Even though Elon ostensibly coined the name as a joke, SemiAnalysis says that the progress behind it is very real, with the Tennessee site showing progress towards more than 400MW of computing power, with the billionaire ordering a complete powerplant from overseas to help hit his target of 2GW of computing power in just one location. More than that, xAI is raising up to $20 billion to purchase more Nvidia GPUs to further expand Colossus 2.

xAI has been pushing hard to expand its AI computing capabilities, with its first supercluster with 100,000 H200 Blackwell GPUs getting set up in just 19 days — a process which Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang says usually takes four years. It has also been growing rapidly, with Musk stating that xAI aims to target 50 million “H100-equivalent” AI GPUs in five years, with 230,000 GPUs already operational and training Grok. This could be a plausible target, especially as the billionaire is seemingly willing and able to burn through more than a billion dollars a month to see his project through.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/elon-musk-says-xai-will-have-more-ai-compute-than-everyone-else-combined-within-five-years-macrohard-branding-emblazoned-on-the-roof-of-the-colossus-2-data-center-in-nod-to-the-billionaires-ai-project-to-challenge-microsoft