5 Big Energy Stories - 6.29.2026: Data Centers Emerge as America's Biggest Current Energy Trade
How GE Vernova builds the massive gas turbines powering the AI data center boom - If you’ve wondered how the big combined-cycle natural gas turbines are made - and why a 4-year backlog in obtaining them has developed in recent years - this piece at CNBC is a pretty decent primer on the topic.
Key Excerpt:
The turbines are massive, at 31 feet tall and weighing 280 tons. One turbine can power roughly half a million homes.
“When we think of what the world needs for electrification and what we need to power this AI surge that we’re living, a lot of that stuff comes right out of this factory,” said Koziner.
Microsoft just bought seven of them to power its data center in Texas. At 2.7 gigawatts, it’s enough electricity to power about 3 million homes.
GE Vernova turbines are already online at Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus 1 campus in Tennessee, and nearly a gigawatt more are being deployed at OpenAI’s Stargate project in Texas, according to Cleanview, an organization that tracks data center development.
