An exclusive look inside GE Vernova‘s largest gas turbine plant in Greenville, South Carolina, offers fresh evidence that the artificial intelligence boom is going strong.
Inside, engineers are working alongside factory workers to speed up production of this complex machine. The company hired 200 workers last year, and 300 more are expected to start working at this factory by the end of the year.
Fueling the growth is AI.
Hyperscalers — companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle — are lining up to buy the company’s gas turbines. With AI data centers requiring a considerable amount of energy and bottlenecks in the grid emerging, these companies are increasingly relying on standalone energy sources, like gas turbines.
“Right now, when you need power at scale and you need firm power, the industrial gas turbine is one of the leading solutions for that,” Pablo Koziner, chief commercial and operations officer at GE Vernova, told CNBC.
The AI opportunity is prompting leaders from OpenAI and other companies to gain a deeper understanding of industrial design and power generation.
Executives from nearly every major hyperscaler have walked the floor of the factory, according to a person familiar with the visits, who asked not to be named because the details are not public.
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.
Demand for these machines far outstrips supply, with the order book full through 2029. Koziner added that the company is booking more into 2030 and even 2031.
“Today, about 20% of our gas power order book is going to a data center, artificial intelligence-type of application,” he said.
One turbine can cost more than $250 million, according to industry estimates. The price has soared, up 300% in the last 3 years, according to analysts at Melius. The steep rise in prices underscores why AI capital expenditure budgets continue to move up, a leading concern among tech investors.
That spending surge has been a boon for GE Vernova, with its stock gaining nearly 60% in the past six months.
Public pushback on data center development and growing environmental concerns could challenge the AI buildout.
GE Vernova said it’s working on making its turbines more environmentally friendly.
“We also put a lot of time and effort into the sustainability of these machines,” Koziner said. “And the turbine that you’re looking at here is two times more efficient than a turbine that we would have produced 20 years ago.”
GE Vernova stock chart.
