xAI is importing an entire power station from abroad to supply one of its US data centers, owner Elon Musk claims.

The power station would feed the company’s new data center being planned in Memphis, Tennessee, where xAI hopes to host up to one million GPUs.

News of the power station was first mentioned by semiconductor industry analyst Dylan Patel, of SemiAnalysis, in an interview posted on X.

“They just bought a power plant from overseas and are shipping it to the US because they couldn’t get a new one [built] in time,” Patel said. “They’re doing all this crazy shit to get the compute.”

Musk responded to the post, describing it as “accurate.”

Whether this proves to be the case remains to be seen, but it is undoubtedly true that xAI will need plenty of power if it is to fulfill its ambitions for Memphis.

The company has announced plans for a second data center in the city, following the purchase of a one million sq ft (92,903 sqm) site on Tulane Road, which is located in the Whitehaven area of Memphis. The site is located next to the Southaven Combined Cycle natural gas power plant, which generates 780MW of power, but even if it were to gain access to the entire output of the facility, it would not be enough to cover the needs of one million GPUs and other IT equipment.

xAI, which is behind the Grok chatbot that Musk hopes will compete with the likes of ChatGPT and Claude, already has a data center in Memphis that reportedly hosts 200,000 GPUs. Last week, it was granted permission for a permanent installation of 15 natural gas turbines at the site.

The company has faced criticism over its use of turbines, which campaigners claim have violated clean air regulations, but says the polluting machines will be used for backup power only once a new electricity substation comes online later this year.

What type of power station xAI has acquired, where it has got it from, and when it will be imported has not been disclosed. When asked for details, Grok said xAI is purchasing “a natural gas combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant, with capacity up to 2GW,” though whether the chatbot has insider knowledge about its own future power source is not clear.

xAI has also apparently recruited former White House aide Katie Miller to lobby journalists about its data center operations. Fortune reports that Miller has been reaching out to journalists on behalf of the company to provide details of its gas turbine permits in Memphis.

Having worked with Musk in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Miller left with the billionaire when he cut ties to DOGE in May. She is apparently now working across Musk’s businesses, including Tesla and SpaceX.

Miller’s husband is Stephen Miller, US President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff.