Lucas FintonMemphis Commercial Appeal
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One day after the announcement that Tesla founder Elon Musk plans to build a supercomputer in Memphis, a number of state and local officials said the investment could help curb crime.
Meeting inside the event space at the main office of the YMCA of Memphis and the Mid South, with the topic of youth violence at the center of discussion, state legislators said the plan could provide additional career opportunities and divert young Memphians from crime.
For State Sen. Brent Taylor, a Republican representing Eads and eastern portions of Shelby County and Memphis, projects like xAI's planned supercomputer and Ford's BlueOval City will diversify the opportunities for young people to pursue within Memphis and West Tennessee.
"I think we do a disservice if we try to make every child go to college," Taylor told the press Thursday morning. "College is not for everybody. I'll be vulnerable for a moment. I don't have a college education. I have a two-year trade school education. I struggled to get out of high school. I went to trade school... There is nothing anyone can't do with a trade school education, and I'm glad to see the pendulum swinging back away from [the idea that] every child needs to go to a four-year college."
Taylor said the plans should bring jobs at the new facilities, but also opportunities with businesses that pop up alongside them.
He also said Memphis' large Black population could lead to the city being the "largest concentration of Black tech talent in the country" with xAI's supercomputer planned to be built in the city.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who was one of the speakers at the YMCA event Thursday, said sending crime-fighting funds to specific zip codes where crime is most prevalent can help attract more businesses — implying that businesses and more career opportunities could also keep crime from rising once it has started to fall.
"People are wanting to move to Memphis — businesses want to come here," Sexton said. "That announcement yesterday is a wonderful thing for Memphis and Shelby County — the world's biggest supercomputer coming to Memphis — it will transform what wants to come into this area. But we also have to make sure that we have a community that's vibrant, where people want to live, where they want to grow, where they want to stay and they don't want to move out."
Cato Johnson, a senior vice president and chief of staff for Methodist Le Bonnheur Healthcare, said BlueOval and xAI are part of a greater system for engaging Memphis' youth with the workforce. Johnson co-chairs the equity growth committee for BlueOval. As part of the two-person YMCA panel, Johnson discussed youth violence with Sexton.
"If you take Ford BlueOval, if you take YMCA, then you take our education system, we have to pull all of that together with the business community," Johnson said to reporters after the event Thursday. "One of the major issues we have right now is workforce — not being able to find people who can do things there."
Also present Thursday morning, though not speaking at the event, was Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission Executive Director Bill Gibbons. Though he said he did not have any studies or data on-hand Thursday, he said that having job opportunities can be a cyclical relationship with crime.
"It's kind of a chicken and egg thing," Gibbons said. "More, and better, jobs can have a positive impact on our crime rate. Reducing our crime rate can make it easier to attract more, and better, jobs to our community."
In line with that thinking, Gibbons said that training and education opportunities are needed to accompany those jobs. Having differing pathways, like BlueOval and xAI, gives options for young Memphians, he said.
"What we've got to do, as a community, is make sure we're connecting those young people with those options, making sure they know about them and have the skills necessary to do those jobs," he said. "That, in turn, moves them in the right direction and I think has a positive impact on our crime rate."
Greater Memphis Chamber President and CEO Ted Townsend announced the planned supercomputer project Wednesday morning.
The xAI project represents a multibillion-dollar investment and is the largest by a new-to-market company in Memphis history. Final job counts and total investment are still being calculated by the company, Townsend said in a press conference Wednesday. The project is expected to open this year.
Few specifics, including its location, were provided about the project, which is called "xAI's Gigafactory of Compute." Townsend said due to global security concerns, the location would not be announced.
The supercomputer project is pending approval by the Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee Valley Authority and other governing authorities.
Though waiting on a final count for the number of jobs the facility may create, the planned project falls in line with one of Memphis Mayor Paul Young's avenues toward curbing crime — both among adults and Memphis' youth. In February this year, Young said he spoke with gang leaders about how to prevent further violence, and he said the men he spoke with wanted career opportunities.
Crime as a whole has been down through the first quarter of 2024, which is a continued decline from the last few months of 2023.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached atLucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.
