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Reads: On October 27, 2025, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, who published a book called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster in 2021, released a memo declaring that the risks of climate change had been overblown. It was the same day OpenAI officially transitioned from a nonprofit to a for-profit company—one in which Microsoft owned a 27 percent stake. Nothing since the Windows operating system has proved more valuable to Microsoft’s fortunes than the AI boom. Mere hours after Gates’s memo was released, Hurricane Melissa, tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to strike land, devastated stretches of Jamaica, its ferocious winds fueled by water heated by global warming. But never mind that. The moment of Big Tech claiming to save the world had passed. It was time to consume it

Correction: On October 28, 2025, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, who published a book called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster in 2021, released a memo declaring that the risks of climate change had been overblown. It was the same day OpenAI officially transitioned from a nonprofit to a for-profit company—one in which Microsoft owned a 27 percent stake. Nothing since the Windows operating system has proved more valuable to Microsoft’s fortunes than the AI boom. Mere hours after Gates’s memo was released, Hurricane Melissa, tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to strike land, devastated stretches of Jamaica, its ferocious winds fueled by water heated by global warming. But never mind that. The moment of Big Tech claiming to save the world had passed. It was time to consume it

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Reads: Within months of Colossus 1 coming online, Musk began construction on a second location, only a few miles away. Dubbed Colossus 2, it was double the size of its predecessor and built just as rapidly; this one consumed enough energy to power almost two million homes and thermal imaging once again showed the operation of gas turbines. Soon, Musk announced a third supercomputer, which he dubbed “Macrohardrr,” a juvenile troll of Microsoft, whose close partnership with OpenAI made the company Musk’s nemesis. This time, the roar from the eighteen methane gas turbines in operation was so deafening that nearby residents have reportedly considered moving. The budget for the three data centers ballooned to nearly $40 billion—a huge sum, even by Musk’s profligate standards.

Correction: Within months of Colossus 1 coming online, Musk began construction on a second location, only a few miles away. Dubbed Colossus 2, it was double the size of its predecessor and built just as rapidly; this one built to potentially consume enough energy to power well over one million homes and thermal imaging once again showed the operation of gas turbines. Soon, Musk announced a third supercomputer, which he dubbed “Macrohardrr,” a juvenile troll of Microsoft, whose close partnership with OpenAI made the company Musk’s nemesis. This time, the roar from the approximately sixty methane gas turbines in operation was so deafening that nearby residents have reportedly considered moving. The budget for the three data centers ballooned to nearly $40 billion—a huge sum, even by Musk’s profligate standards.

Note: Looking forward, Elon Musk has predicted that the power capacity of xAI’s data centers will reach 10GW by late 2027, enough energy for approximately eight million homes by some estimates.

Source for the sixty: https://www.wkyufm.org/news/2026-08-31/noise-pollution-from-data-centers-is-coming-the-gas-powered-xai-model-is-spreading

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