“AI” needs a lot of computing resources, which is why new data centers are cropping up anywhere there’s cheap land. But powering all those hungry servers takes a lot of energy, and overburdened power grids aren’t always up to the challenge. In addition to diesel generators and resurrected nuclear plants, data center operators are now repurposing airplane engines. Yes, really.
At the Data Center World Power Show in Texas, natural gas provider ProEnergy is showing off the PE6000, a power generator built by repurposing old jet engines from planes like the Boeing 747. Promotional pages claim this design can output 48 megawatts at a time, four to five times as much energy as a single-family home uses in a year. IEEE Spectrum (via Tom’s Hardware) reports that 21 of these gas-powered turbines have already been sold, specifically to data center operators in locations that don’t have the necessary electrical grid capacity.
On ProEnergy’s promotional page, you can see a photo of the engine installed next to some kind of industrial building. And yeah, it looks just like a jet engine clamped in place on the ground, locked into a steel frame and set on gravel. I can only imagine what it sounds like because there’s no mention of noise or a video of the turbine in operation. But the presumably similar LM6000 was featured in the YouTube video below:
The staggering energy requirements of data centers—many of which are being built exclusively for the generative “AI” industry—are causing no small amount of problems.
In addition to straining conventional power grids and causing energy prices to skyrocket for both regular home customers and businesses, noise and pollution from stopgap, on-site energy generation is affecting people living nearby. In Tennessee, the data center running Elon Musk’s xAI systems is using gas turbines and pumping out harmful emissions, including nitrogen oxides known to contribute to respiratory diseases. Locals have been fighting to get the data center restricted or shut down, a fight between industry and citizens that’s being mirrored around the US and the world.
