In July, Elon Musk made a bold prediction: that his artificial intelligence startup xAI would release “the most powerful AI in the world,” a model called Grok 3, by this December. The bulk of that AI’s training, Musk said, would happen at a “massive new training center” in Memphis, which he bragged had been built in 19 days. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But many residents of Memphis were taken by surprise, including city council members who said they were given no input about the project or its potential impacts on the city.