Data Centers Ditch the Grid: How Aircraft Turbines and Generators Are Becoming the New Power Play

Facing years-long waits for grid connections, data center operators are pulling a radical pivot. They're not just buying more diesel generators—they're snapping up decommissioned aircraft engines and industrial-scale turbines to create their own micro-grids.

The Gridlock Problem

The traditional path to power is broken. Securing a reliable, high-capacity connection from the public utility can take half a decade or more. That's an eternity in tech time, where a delayed launch can mean a dead project. So, the industry is cutting the cord.

Jet Fuel to Joule: The New Power Source

This isn't about backup power; it's about primary power. Modified aircraft turbines, originally designed for jets, are being repurposed into high-efficiency gas generators. Coupled with massive battery storage systems, they form a self-contained power plant. It's faster, offers more control over costs and carbon footprint—and completely bypasses the utility middleman.

The Bottom Line: Speed Over Everything

The calculus is brutally simple. The capital cost of building your own power infrastructure is steep, but it's a known quantity. The cost of waiting for the grid is a complete unknown: lost market share, missed contracts, and stranded assets. For hyperscalers and AI firms, time is the only currency that matters.

One financier's cynical take? "It's the ultimate off-balance-sheet move. They're not buying energy; they're buying a call option on future revenue, and dressing it up as infrastructure." The energy transition just got a private equity makeover.

Major tech players secure jet engine power

GE Vernova has agreed to provide data center operator Crusoe with turbines adapted from aircraft engines. These units are projected to generate close to 1 gigawatt of electricity for the Stargate data center in Texas, which will serve OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

Ken Parks, who serves as chief financial officer at GE Vernova, informed investors in December that the firm was experiencing “growing demand” for its aircraft-derived and smaller gas units, which “serve as bridge power supporting data centre needs.”

The company’s aircraft-based turbine orders increased by one-third during the first nine months of 2025 when measured against the same period in the prior year.

ProEnergy has delivered over 1 gigawatt worth of 50-megawatt gas turbines that come directly from jet engine designs. Though the company increasingly manufactures components independently, it continues using CF6-80C2 engine cores, the same type found in Boeing 747 aircraft.

“We can deliver more quickly than bigger original equipment manufacturers,” said Andrew Gilbert, a partner at Energy Capital Partners, which holds the majority stake in ProEnergy Holdings. “The ability to find a few hundred megawatts to get started with, and then grow over time is useful too.”

Aviation startup Boom Supersonic, which counts Sam Altman among its backers, struck a deal to sell turbines to Crusoe that should deliver 1.2 gigawatts of power. These turbines are “virtually identical” to units designed for the company’s aircraft.

Boom Supersonic plans to channel profits from power turbine sales into financing its jet manufacturing operations.

“Three or four years ago I imagined we WOULD do the airplane first and energy second,” chief executive Blake Scholl told the Financial Times. “But then I got a call from Sam Altman who said: ‘Please, please, please make us something.'”

Diesel generator demand doubles

Diesel and gas-powered generators are also seeing increased adoption. Cummins has delivered more than 39 gigawatts of power equipment to data centers and roughly doubled its production capacity this year.

Though data centers traditionally keep generators as emergency backup systems, Paulette Carter, who leads data center operations at Cummins, notes they’re witnessing “growing interest in on-site primary power.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has floated the idea of tapping existing backup generators to strengthen the electrical grid, telling Fox News in November: “We will take backup generators already at data centers or behind the back of a Walmart and bring those on when we need extra electricity production.”

Higher costs for on-site power solutions

On-site power costs appear higher than standard grid connections, since these arrangements lack the cost advantages that utilities gain from large-scale operations. BNP Paribas analysts calculated power prices at a behind-the-meter gas facility that Williams Company is constructing in Ohio for Meta at $175 per megawatt hour, roughly twice what industrial customers typically pay for electricity.

The power rush may ease when major technology companies reduce their infrastructure spending.

“We’re in a very strong market right now, but it won’t stay like that forever,” said Mark Axford of Axford Turbine Consultants.

Join Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes