With grid connections and new turbine installations tied up in multi-year queues, some artificial intelligence data centers are generating their own electricity by converting retired aircraft jet engines to burn natural gas, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
These repurposed engines are not intended as long-term utility-scale plants: they originate from aircraft and are rebuilt to run on natural gas. Still, their use highlights how much power supply has lagged behind the rapid AI infrastructure buildout.
Why operators opt for converted jet engines
The main attraction is speed. Audun Martinsen, an analyst at Rystad Energy, told the Times it is “all about getting power as fast as possible.” He said that using jet-powered units can allow a data center to be operational within about 24 months.
By contrast, the International Energy Agency estimates that hooking up 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia takes roughly seven years. A Mitsubishi Power executive told Bloomberg that most new generation capacity is expected to come online by 2031.
Examples and business impacts
The delays are already costing some operators. Last month Microsoft withdrew as the anchor customer for Nscale’s data center in Loughton, England, after the local utility said it could not supply sufficient power until the early to mid-2030s.
Several AI-related companies have turned to converted jet engines. Elon Musk’s xAI installed eight converted jet-engine turbines in Mississippi to help power its Colossus 2 data center near Memphis, according to state permits and satellite imagery cited by the Times. Those units come from ProEnergy, which rebuilds a GE engine commonly found on Boeing jets.
In 2025, OpenAI followed a similar approach at its first Stargate site in Abilene, Texas. Crusoe, a Denver-based startup constructing the Abilene campus, ordered 13 of ProEnergy’s converted units in April.
In September, Crusoe walked away from a $1.25 billion deal to buy 29 natural gas turbines from Boom Supersonic — a startup that has begun selling a version of its jet engine as a power plant for data centers. At the time, a Crusoe spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company still planned to use turbines.
Policy context and environmental trade-offs
The Trump administration has also been encouraging data centers to generate their own electricity, adding policy pressure in that direction.
Converted jet engines come with clear drawbacks: they are less efficient and emit more pollution than turbines purpose-built for conventional gas plants, and more units are required to produce the same power. The Times notes experts consider these installations likely to be temporary, and that concerns about efficiency and environmental impact may grow over the next year or two.
