Will the XAI 19 Day Data Center Miracle Win the Future of AI?

By Brian Wang

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang knows exactly how long it takes most companies to build an AI data center using Nvidia GPUs. He describes how his Nvidia team worked with xAI and Elon Musk to build a complete AI Data Center with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs in 19 days. Elon Musk has said it took 122 days from start to finish.

Jensen said this would normally take 4 years. It would take 3 years for the planning and getting the site and permits and then it would take one year to build it and get it working and everyone trained. This means XAI took about 103 days for the planning and other non-GPU planning and other tasks.

The removal of most of the 3 year planning and preparation requires leveraging Elon's Tesla team and processes they have worked out for factories and the prior setup of 20,000 GPUs used for Grok 2.

Debugging, optimizing, and ensuring sufficient power supply for these massive clusters can take additional time. The actual time to reach full operational capacity may be longer than the initial deployment timeframe.

The Colossus supercomputer uses at least 150 MW of power, as 100,000 H100 GPUs use 70 Megawatts. They have been using 14 diesel generators to power ithe Memphis supercomputer. The power will need to be increased to feed all 100,000 H100 GPUs.

Tesla, SpaceX AI for Testing and Processes Have Been Used at xAI and Tesla AI Data Centers

Joe Justice describes that Tesla has a stack of scripts that run multiple times a second. Changes can be imagined, designed, produced and tested and put into production in the same day.

Everything is optimized for Pace of Innovation. Tesla has built instant testing into its cars even as they are being built.

One of the first things installed is the computer and monitor in the car. When other parts are added, the software runs tests to verify that it has been installed correctly and is meeting standards.

This has likely been added to the xAI AI data center installation, build and testing processes.

Tesla can completely design, build and test and certify a car in one hour. Other car companies take a year or more. If xAI has converted the installation, building and testing of a 100k GPU cluster from a 365 days process into a 19 day process and shortened the planing and preparation from 3 years into 100 days then this could be an unbeatable level of speed for xAI and for Tesla AI.

AI Data centers need to be built and upgraded as fast as the chips can be made available.

Faster xAI and Tesla AI Data Center Construction Could Be A Decisive Advantage

xAI will be making an expansion that will double the size of the Colossus data center in next 4-5 months.

xAI will build another even larger 300k B200 system in the summer. This will be about 12X the compute of the current system.

So three iterations of data center builds in the roughly 120 day timeframes. If no other company can match this then xAI would build a 2+ year lead.