Musk’s AI supercomputer, used by U.S. military, secretly relies on Chinese hardware
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Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Oligarch Watch.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has built its sprawling data center using more than 2,000 metric tons of Chinese-made transformers, a security risk that could leave it vulnerable to espionage or sabotage.
xAI’s Colossus data facility, located in Tennessee and home to the largest AI supercomputer in the world, could be a valuable target for US adversaries due to the company’s work for the Pentagon. The Department of War awarded xAI a contract worth up to $200 million in July to “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges… across warfighting and enterprise domains.”
A cybersecurity firm that consults for the US government has already raised concerns about hostile efforts to infiltrate superintelligence projects like Colossus, including through Chinese-manufactured components that can be “compromised for surveillance or sabotage.”
xAI’s facility in Tennessee has already been targeted by a “foreign national” with “Russian” ties, according to a new lawsuit obtained by Oligarch Watch.
The US government, meanwhile, has become increasingly reliant on xAI’s services. Along with its Pentagon contract, the General Services Administration granted federal agencies approval in September to purchase and use Grok, xAI’s chatbot. The Department of Homeland Security has also reportedly used customized versions of Grok since at least May. More recently, xAI has sought to hire several employees with top-secret security clearances, signaling plans to expand its government work.
xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
xAI’s Chinese transformers
Since October of last year, CTC Property LLC, the xAI affiliate that manages the company’s Tennessee data center, has imported at least eight shipments of transformers from China. Bills of lading identify the components as 2,218 metric tons of three-phase mineral-oil-filled transformers, according to US Customs data compiled by Datamyne, a platform that collects trade analytics. Spread over 1,069 packages, the transformers acquired by xAI include units with power-handling capacities exceeding 10,000 kilovolt-amps (kVA), as well as units with capacities ranging from 650 to 10,000 kVA.
xAI’s use of Chinese-made transformers has not been previously reported.
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Transformers, which convert high-voltage electricity into a usable form for servers and other computing equipment, are critical for energy-intensive
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