AI 数据中心并网排队数年，改用退役喷气发动机自建电力
Data centers are turning to old jet engines as the wait for power grows
- 1部分 AI 数据中心因并网排队数年，改用退役飞机喷气发动机改造后烧天然气自建发电
- 2Rystad Energy 分析师称这类机组最快 24 个月可投运，国际能源署称北弗吉尼亚接入 100 兆瓦约需 7 年
- 3电力短缺已影响业务，微软因当地电网到 2030 年代早中期才能足额供电，退出 Nscale 英国数据中心
- 4xAI 为孟菲斯 Colossus 2 安装 8 台 ProEnergy 改造机组；报道称这类发动机效率更低、污染更多
AI 算力扩张的瓶颈正从芯片转向电力，改造喷气发动机是并网排队过长下的过渡性补丁，而非长期方案。
- 影响：算力交付节奏开始由电力供应决定，规划数据中心或采购算力需把数年并网周期计入时间和成本；自发电抬升燃料成本与排放，效率与环保约束可能在一两年内变得更突出。
- 参考：可考虑在算力采购或选址前先核算目标区域电网接入的实际排队时长；值得评估合同中的供电时间与违约条款，并比较自发电、自建与租用算力的成本。
- 依据：核心数字出自纽约时报报道，分别引自 Rystad Energy、国际能源署与三菱电力高管的口径；微软与 Crusoe 的动作为当事方表态。
Stuck in years-long lines for grid connections and new turbines, some AI data centers are making their own electricity with converted jet engines, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The engines, pulled from retired aircraft and rebuilt to burn natural gas, aren’t anyone’s idea of a permanent power plant. But they’re another sign of how far power supply has fallen behind the AI buildout.
For companies stuck in those lines, the main draw of converted jet engines is how quickly the engines can be up and running. “It’s all about getting power as fast as possible,” Rystad Energy analyst Audun Martinsen told the Times. With jet-powered units, “they can have a data center running in 24 months,” he said.
Hooking up 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia, by comparison, takes about seven years, according to the International Energy Agency. Most power capacity is expected to come on by 2031, an executive at Mitsubishi Power, one of the world’s top makers of power generation equipment told Bloomberg last week.
In some cases, these delays are already costing some data center operators business. Last month, Microsoft pulled out as the anchor customer for Nscale’s data center in Loughton, England, after the local utility said it couldn’t deliver enough power until the early-to-mid 2030s.
Elon Musk’s xAI is among the companies already using the engines, having installed eight converted jet-engine turbines in Mississippi to help power its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, the Times reported, citing 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 centers, 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, 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 centers. A Crusoe spokesperson told TechCrunch at the time that the company still plans to use turbines.
Currently the Trump administration is adding to the pressure by encouraging data centers to generate their own electricity.
Converted jet engines come with trade-offs, though: They’re less efficient and pollute more than turbines designed for conventional gas plants and 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 with some experts saying that efficiency and environmental concerns may grow in importance in a year or two.
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Aditya Mehta is a reporter at TechCrunch covering AI. He’s supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism and attended UC Berkeley. You can contact from Aditya by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at adymehta.74 on Signal.
来源：TechCrunch · AI · techcrunch.com