TechCrunch reported on Oct. 31 that a federal judge denied xAI's request to dismiss a lawsuit from the NAACP. The Southern Environmental Law Center, suing for the NAACP, said xAI, which SpaceX owns, ran at least 35 combustion turbines and other pollution sources at its Colossus data center near Memphis. It said xAI never got the preconstruction or operating air permits required. The suit also accuses xAI of violating the Clean Air Act.
xAI argued the turbines need no permit because they are mobile, and that the plaintiffs could not sue. Judge Debra M. Brown wrote that the turbines are not "mobile sources" under Mississippi's State Implementation Plan, the state's air-quality rulebook. She also wrote that the plaintiffs have standing and that citizen suits are not unconstitutional. This was a ruling on a motion to dismiss, so the case continues. The court has made no finding that xAI broke the law, and no trial date was reported.
This is one district court ruling about one site's turbines under one state's plan, not a general rule on on-site power. In our reading, buyers of AI computing capacity can still ask providers which permits cover their power equipment. The reporting does not say xAI's capacity is at risk.