Dec 4 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's artificial intelligence

startup xAI plans to expand its Memphis, Tennessee,

supercomputer to house at least one million graphics processing

units (GPUs), the Greater Memphis Chamber said on Wednesday, as

xAI races to compete against rivals like OpenAI.

The move represents a massive expansion for the

supercomputer called Colossus, which currently has 100,000 GPUs

to train xAI's chatbot called Grok.

As part of the expansion, Nvidia ( NVDA ), which supplies

the GPUs, and Dell and Super Micro, which have

assembled the server racks for the computer, will establish

operations in Memphis, the chamber said in a statement.

Colossus is a critical component of advancing Musk's AI

efforts, as the billionaire has deepened his rivalry against

OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman. Last month, Musk

expanded his lawsuit against the ChatGPT-maker, arguing that

OpenAI and Microsoft illegally sought to monopolize the AI

market.

The plan to expand the xAI supercomputer tenfold will likely

raise environmental concerns, as activists and lawmakers have

scrutinized the growing number of data centers for their vast

energy consumption. In August, the Southern Environmental Law

Center called on local Tennessee officials to verify whether xAI

was using gas turbines to help power its supercomputer without

the required air permits.