More than 2,000 facilities are under construction in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to American Compute. The article argues that developers are drawn to regions near natural gas resources and are seeking electricity at about 3–5 cents per kilowatt-hour, below the average industrial rate charged by most utilities. Some are refurbishing aircraft engines for power generation.

Utilities generally favor large combined-cycle gas plants, which the article says have heat rates of about 7,000 British thermal units per kilowatt-hour, compared with about 12,000 for simple-cycle combustion turbines. Lower heat rates mean more efficient fuel use. Simple-cycle units also release hot exhaust gases at about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while combined-cycle plants use waste heat to generate additional electricity. Utilities typically reserve smaller turbines for peak demand; they run about 5% of the time, compared with nearly 70% for larger combined-cycle plants.

The appeal of the smaller turbines is speed. Building a large power plant from scratch now takes about 5–7 years, and costs have more than doubled, the authors say. Turbines from GE Vernova, Mitsubishi Power and Siemens are on back order, while a truck-mounted GE LM2500 aeroderivative turbine can be operating in months. Some projects are pairing turbines with batteries.

Published estimates cited by the authors put behind-the-meter data center generation at 30–50 gigawatts within five years, roughly the size of Southern Company’s 46-gigawatt regulated generating fleet. If demand for data centers falls, developers could try to sell surplus electricity to the grid, creating competition for utilities. The authors also raise the prospect that environmental rules could constrain these generators, leaving questions over how data centers would be powered and who would bear the costs. They describe the outcome as uncertain, citing possible antitrust enforcement, environmental regulation, more efficient AI, or a downturn in the sector as factors that could change the trajectory.