AI data centres are now powering themselves with retired jet engines because waiting for grid connections has become impossible. The New York Times reported this shift on Tuesday.
These engines come from aircraft that are no longer flying. They are rebuilt to burn natural gas, but they are not designed to be permanent power stations. Their use highlights how far behind power supply has fallen behind the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
For firms stuck in years-long queues, the main benefit is speed. Audun Martinsen, an analyst at Rystad Energy, told the Times that the goal is simply to get power as fast as possible. With jet-powered units, a data centre can be running in 24 months.
Connecting 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia takes about seven years, according to the International Energy Agency. Most new power capacity is not expected to come online until 2031, an executive at Mitsubishi Power told Bloomberg last week. The company is one of the world’s top makers of power generation equipment.
Delays are already costing operators business. Last month, Microsoft withdrew as the anchor customer for Nscale’s data centre in Loughton, England. The local utility said it could not deliver enough power until the early to mid-2030s.
Elon Musk’s xAI is among the companies already using the engines. It has installed eight converted jet-engine turbines in Mississippi to help power its Colossus 2 data centre in Memphis, the Times reported. The report cited state permits and satellite imagery. The units come from ProEnergy, which rebuilds a GE engine commonly found on Boeing jets.
In 2025, OpenAI followed Musk’s lead with gas turbines at its first Stargate site in Abilene, Texas. Crusoe, a Denver-based startup that builds AI data centres, is constructing that Abilene campus and 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. Boom is a startup developing a supersonic passenger jet that has also begun selling a version of that jet’s engine as a power plant for data centres. A Crusoe spokesperson told TechCrunch at the time that the company still plans to use turbines.
The Trump administration is adding to the pressure by encouraging data centres to generate their own electricity.
Converted jet engines come with trade-offs. They are less efficient and pollute more than turbines designed for conventional gas plants. 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. Some experts say that efficiency and environmental concerns may grow in importance in a year or two.
