Anthropic announced a deal to use the full capacity of xAI's Colossus 1 data center, which has a controversial environmental record — its gas turbines initially operated without Clean Air Act permits and have been linked to increased hospital admissions from poor air quality. Simon Willison argues this is a bad look for Anthropic given the political sensitivity around AI data centers. He also notes that xAI is retaining its larger Colossus 2 facility, and that Elon Musk's stated right to reclaim compute if Anthropic's AI 'harms humanity' introduces a new form of supply chain risk. Separately, xAI gave developers less than two weeks' notice before deprecating Grok 4.1 Fast and other models.
Sort: