exclusive look inside GE VernovaThe company’s largest gas turbine plant in Greenville, South Carolina, provides new evidence that the artificial intelligence boom is thriving.
Inside, engineers work with factory workers to speed up production of this complex machine. The company hired 200 workers last year, and another 300 are expected to start working at the factory by the end of the year.
AI is driving growth.
Hyperscalers — companies like Amazon, google, microsoft and oracle — People are lining up to buy the company’s gas turbines. As AI data centers require significant amounts of energy and create bottlenecks in the power grid, these companies are increasingly relying on standalone energy sources such as gas turbines.
“Today, when you need large-scale power and you need reliable power, industrial gas turbines are one of the key solutions for that,” Pablo Koziner, chief commercial and operations officer at GE Vernova, told CNBC.
AI opportunities are enabling leaders at OpenAI and other companies to deepen their understanding of industrial design and power generation.
Executives from nearly every major hyperscaler walked the factory floor, according to a person familiar with the visit, who requested anonymity because the details are private.
The turbine is huge, 31 feet tall and weighing 280 tons. One turbine can power approximately 500,000 homes.
“When you think about what the world needs in electrification and what it takes to power this AI explosion that we’re living in, a lot of it is coming directly from this factory,” Koziner said.
Microsoft just purchased seven of them to power its data centers in Texas. 2.7 gigawatts is enough to power about 3 million homes.
According to Cleanview, an organization that tracks data center development, GE Vernova turbines are already in operation at Elon Musk’s xAI Colossus 1 campus in Tennessee, and nearly 1 gigawatt of additional turbines are being installed at OpenAI’s Stargate project in Texas.
Demand for these machines far exceeds supply, and the order book is full through 2029. Koziner added that the company has further bookings for 2030 and even 2031.
“Currently, about 20% of our gas generation order books are going to data centers, artificial intelligence type applications,” he said.
Industry estimates suggest the cost of a single turbine could exceed $250 million. Prices are soaring, rising 300% in the past three years, Melius analysts say. The jump in prices highlights why AI capital spending budgets continue to rise, a major concern among tech investors.
This surge in spending has been a boon for GE Vernova, whose stock has risen nearly 60% in the past six months.
Public backlash against data center development and growing environmental concerns could make building AI difficult.
GE Vernova said it is working on making its turbines more environmentally friendly.
“We also spent a lot of time and effort on the sustainability of these machines,” Koziner said. “And the turbine you’re looking at here is twice as efficient as the turbines we were building 20 years ago.”
GE Vernova stock price chart.
