XII reported an important achievement: its supercomputer Colossus now operates on the basis of 200 thousand NVIDIA graphic processors. Engineers plan to increase the computing power of the system five times, bringing the amount of GPU to a million units.
The construction of a digital giant took only 122 days – four times less than the planned two years. After launch, the team took another 92 days to increase the number of graphic accelerators to the current level. Such development pace distinguishes the project against the background of competitors, including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with its 131,072 processors.
The history of Colossus began in 2023 along with the founding of the XII – new project of Ilon Mask in the field of artificial intelligence. In December 2024, the company attracted six billion dollars in the framework of the series Series C, sending funds to develop a supercomputer and related projects: Aurora and the GROK language model. In February 2025, on the basis of Colossus, it was possible to teach the most perfect version of AI – GROK 3, which significantly surpassed the predecessors in logical thinking, mathematical computing, programming, general erudition and following complex instructions.
The technical characteristics of the supercomputer are impressive: the capacity of the memory reaches 194 petabytes per second, and the volume of storage exceeds one exabaite. The computing center is located in Memphis, Tennessee. There he helps to train GROK and supports the work of the social network X.
To power such a powerful system, a special electric substation for 150 megavatts connected to the Memphis Light, Gas and Water and Tennessee Valley Authority networks was built. Uninterrupted work is provided by an innovative solution – Tesla Megapack batteries of similar power. They protect the complex from interruptions in power supply, voltage jumps and peak loads.
Each lithium-ion battery is able to store about 3900 kilowat hours of energy-this supply is equal to the consumption of 62 Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles with rear-wheel drive. In addition to the main task, the network of drives allows you to sell excess energy back to the network at high tariffs during periods of peak demand.
At the initial stage, the power supply was provided by generators on natural gas, but now the team is looking for alternative energy sources. This is especially important, taking into account the expansion plans: an increase in the number of graphic processors to a million will require sky -high resources.
But this is how XII will be able to compete with the latest Openai developments in the field of language models and projects META AI*. The current configuration with 200 thousand GPU already makes Colossus a serious player in the supercomputers market. Given the rapid pace and the results achieved, the ambitious goal of achieving a million processors can be realized in the near future.
* META and its products are recognized as extremist, their activities are prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.