--- title: "xAI: what it means · The AI Compute Race · DRYBURGH" source: https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/xai description: "xAI: The company Elon Musk founded in 2023, which built Colossus in Memphis and merged into SpaceX on 2 February 2026…" --- # xAI What does “xAI” mean? xAIThe company Elon Musk founded in 2023, which built Colossus in Memphis and merged into SpaceX on 2 February 2026, doing business afterward as SpaceXAI and, from October 2026, SpaceXSI. The chapters use the name for events before the merger. See SpaceXAI. *Chapters 4, 9.* From *The AI Compute Race*. [Read the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#buy) ## Where the book uses it - [Chapter 4 — One Rack](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-4)How a datacenter is actually built, from a converted factory in Memphis to a greenfield campus in Texas, and what the clock from first ground to first power really measures. - [Chapter 9 — The Price of Permission](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9)Who gets to say yes or no to a campus: counties, air regulators, courts and legislatures, and what their permits, abatements and refusals cost in time and money. ## Where the record uses it - Person [Britton, Barbara](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people#britton-barbara) - Person [Gracias, Antonio](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people#gracias-antonio) - Person [Mayo, Brent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people#mayo-brent) - Person [Musk, Elon](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people#musk-elon) ## Sources that use it - Apollo Global Management, “Apollo Backs $5.4 Billion Valor and xAI Data Center Compute Transaction,” press release, 7 January 2026 (Apollo-managed funds led a $3.5 billion capital solution for Valor Compute Infrastructure LP supporting a $5.4 billion acquisition and triple-net lease of computing assets, including NVIDIA GB200 processors, to an xAI subsidiary for xAI’s second data center; NVIDIA an anchor limited partner; investors to receive quarterly cash distributions and upside through ownership of the compute assets; on the fund, Antonio Gracias, Valor’s founder: “critical artificial intelligence compute infrastructure” (his statement in the release)). [In the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources/company#apollo-valor) - Athene Holding Ltd., “Athene’s Role in Financing AI-Related Infrastructure,” investor presentation, October 2026, furnished with its Form 8-K of 30 October 2026 (Item 7.01) (slide 19, “Athene Has a 3% Allocation to Attractive Digital Infrastructure Investments”: “$12.9B ~3% of Gross Invested Assets,” split chips $3.6 billion, secured debt with an investment-grade guarantee $3.6 billion, energy $0.7 billion, other $5.0 billion, by off-taker SpaceX and xAI, Oracle, Meta, Anthropic, Amazon, Google and Microsoft; an interested party’s measure on its own analysts’ definition, unaudited, commercial mortgage loans excluded) [In the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources/company#athene-ai-deck-oct26) - Elon Musk, post on X announcing the Colossus milestone, 2 September 2024 (“This weekend, the @xAI team brought our Colossus 100k H100 training cluster online. From start to finish, it was done in 122 days.”). [In the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources/company#musk-122-days) - Greater Memphis Chamber, “Velocity Meets Potency: xAI Announces Memphis as New Home,” 5 June 2024 (the public announcement — 89 elapsed days before the 2 September online declaration; Doug McGowen, MLGW’s president and chief executive, “proud of our work to provide utilities for such a massive project and to do it quickly”). [In the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources/company#chamber-xai-announce) - Greater Memphis Chamber, “xAI Phase One Substation #63 Providing 150MW of Power to Facility,” press release, 7 May 2025 (the substation energized and 150 MW flowing from 1 May 2025; a second substation, #22, “already in construction”, its completion and connection to the electric grid “planned for the Fall of 2025”). [In the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources/company#chamber-substation-63) And 119 more: [search the Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources). ## Related terms - [Colossus](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/colossus) - [SpaceXAI](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/spacexai) - [SpaceXSI](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/spacexsi) - [TVA](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/tva) - [122 days](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/122-days) - [Abilene](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/abilene) - [Accelerator](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/accelerator) - [Agreed order](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/agreed-order) - [Blackwell](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/blackwell) - [Catalytic controls](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/catalytic-controls) - [Clean Air Act](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/clean-air-act) - [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/consent) From the glossary of The AI Compute Race. - [Campuses](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger) - [Tests](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests) - [Scorecard](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard) - [Data](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/releases) - [Chapter by chapter](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/companion) - [The record at a glance](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/observatory) - [The machine](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/machine) - [One campus, four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/hyperion) - [Glossary](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary) - [People](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people) - [Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources) - [Notes](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes) - [Where the book was wrong](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/corrections) - [Where its sources were wrong](https://dryburgh.com/corrections?book=vol1) - [The Paper](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/paper) - [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/consent) - [Who builds and pays](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties) *The AI Compute Race: Five Races, One Machine* is a book by Lee S. Dryburgh, the first volume of THE COMPUTE ECONOMY, published by Dryburgh, an imprint of Contestra OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; its record closes on 8 November 2026. [About the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1)[Tell me when it is out](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#notify)