TVA board meets in Murray; approves more power for Musk supercomputer in Memphis

The Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors ended the utility's fiscal year by traveling to Murray to hold its quarterly business meeting.

At the public meeting at the Curris Center, board members approved salaries for executives, discussed environmental objectives as a new administration moves in to the White House, and voted to provide power for Elon Musk's latest billion-dollar venture.

The board unanimously approved a plan to provide another 150 megawatts to TVA's largest customer, Memphis Light, Gas and Water. The increase is needed to provide power to Elon Musk's startup company xAI.

Musk's new supercomputer, named "Colossus," resides in Memphis in a former Electrolux factory building. It's being used to train the artificial intelligence responsible for chatbots offered to social media users on Musk's social media platform X . The computer's network requires enough electricity to power more than 100,000 Nvidia CPUs.

The supercomputer is already online and using temporary gas turbines to power the facility. At peak power usage, xAI is expected to use 150 megawatts. Any usage more than 100 megawatts requires TVA approval.

Part of  TVA's plan to provide the extra energy is by expanding solar facilities, which currently include 4,000 megawatts of solar farms. By 2035, TVA wants to increase its solar output to 10,000 megawatts.

Solar and wind energy account for about 4 percent of TVA's total power output.