{"id":751282,"date":"2026-11-04T04:45:29","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T01:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/data-centers-are-turning-to-old-jet-engines-as-the-wait-for-power-grows\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T04:45:29","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T01:45:29","slug":"data-centers-are-turning-to-old-jet-engines-as-the-wait-for-power-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/data-centers-are-turning-to-old-jet-engines-as-the-wait-for-power-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"Data centers are turning to old jet engines as the wait for power grows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stuck in years-long lines for grid connections and new turbines, some AI data centers are making their own electricity with converted jet engines, the New York Times reported<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The engines, pulled from retired aircraft and rebuilt to burn natural gas, aren\u2019t anyone\u2019s idea of a permanent power plant. But they\u2019re another sign of how far power supply has fallen behind the AI buildout.<\/p>\n

For companies stuck in those lines, the main draw of converted jet engines is how quickly the engines can be up and running. \u201cIt\u2019s all about getting power as fast as possible,\u201d Rystad Energy analyst Audun Martinsen told the Times. With jet-powered units, \u201cthey can have a data center running in 24 months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hooking up 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia, by comparison, takes about seven years<\/a>, according to the International Energy Agency. Most power capacity is expected to come on by 2031, an executive at Mitsubishi Power, one of the world\u2019s top makers of power generation equipment, told Bloomberg last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In some cases, these delays are already costing some data center operators business. Last month, Microsoft pulled out<\/a> as the anchor customer for Nscale\u2019s data center in Loughton, England, after the local utility said it couldn\u2019t deliver enough power until the early to mid-2030s.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s xAI is among the companies already using the engines, having installed eight converted jet-engine turbines in Mississippi to help power its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, the Times reported, citing state permits and satellite imagery. The units come from ProEnergy, which rebuilds a GE engine commonly found on Boeing jets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2025, OpenAI followed Musk\u2019s lead<\/a> with gas turbines at its first Stargate site in Abilene, Texas.\u00a0Crusoe, a Denver-based startup that builds AI data centers, is constructing that Abilene campus and ordered 13<\/a> of ProEnergy\u2019s converted units in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September, Crusoe walked away from a $1.25 billion deal to buy 29 natural gas turbines from Boom Supersonic, a startup developing a supersonic passenger jet that has also begun selling a version of that jet\u2019s engine as a power plant for data centers. A Crusoe spokesperson told TechCrunch at the time that the company still plans to use turbines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently the Trump administration is adding to the pressure<\/a> by encouraging data centers to generate their own electricity.<\/p>\n

Converted jet engines come with trade-offs, though: They\u2019re less efficient and pollute more than turbines designed for conventional gas plants, and it takes more of them to make the same amount of power, according to the Times. That may ultimately make converted jet engines a short-term play with some experts saying that efficiency and environmental concerns may grow in importance in a year or two.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stuck in years-long lines for grid connections and new turbines, some AI data centers are making their own electricity with converted jet engines, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The engines, pulled from retired aircraft and rebuilt to burn natural gas, aren\u2019t anyone\u2019s idea of a permanent power plant. But they\u2019re another sign of how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":751283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Commercial-plane-clouds.jpg?w=719","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[77337,153835],"class_list":["post-751282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-data-centers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}