Gas turbines and engines at data centers: who is winning the on-site power orders

Who makes the turbines at data centers' own power plants?

Some data centers cannot wait years for the grid, so power plants are being built to serve them directly, on site or under a dedicated arrangement. Spezia found 24 such plants in public documents as of November 13, 2026, with 35.4 GW of capacity. The documents name a maker for 11.7 GW of units, and GE Vernova leads by a wide margin.

Units count every machine, so Bloom Energy's 7,000 fuel cells at a single plant outnumber everyone's turbines. Capacity is the fairer measure of an order book.

How far along are the plants?

Most of the capacity is not built yet. 2 plants with 2.0 GW are operating. 3 with 10.6 GW are under construction, and the rest is approved or only announced.

plants operating, 2.0 GW

2

under construction, 10.6 GW

3

approved, 6.5 GW

4

announced, 16.3 GW

15

By maker, the split shows who has machines in the ground and who has a pipeline:

GE Vernova has the most capacity operating or under construction: 1,601 MW operating and 2,823 MW under construction. A plant's stage comes from a quote in its own documents for 18 of the 24 plants. The other 6 have no such quote and count as announced.

Which turbine and engine models are going in?

Here is every model the documents name, by capacity.

Where a model's capacity says not stated, no document gave its megawatts per unit and Spezia has no checked rating for that exact model, so its units count but add nothing to the totals.

Gas turbines, engines or fuel cells?

Turbines, by capacity. Named gas turbines total 8.7 GW in 153 units. Reciprocating gas engines total 666 MW in 197 units, and fuel cells 2.3 GW in 7,000 units at one site.

Engines are smaller machines, so a plant needs more of them for the same output. A sales team selling engines will see more units and fewer megawatts per order than one selling turbines.

The largest on-site plants, and whose units are in them

Each plant below names at least one maker. Where a document's stated total and the units' rated total differ, both are shown: a stated total is often net output or only the first phase, and the totals above count the larger of the two.

9 more plants, with 13.3 GW, have a stated size but no count of units by maker in the documents Spezia has read (a document may name a supplier without a count). They are where the next orders are still open. These 7 have a source that is not a repost:

Where are these plants being built?

Texas leads by far: 6 plants with 16.4 GW. Each state links to its data center tracker page.

For the grid side of the same story, read power plants planned near data centers and the gigawatt power wall. For when the equipment packages are bought, read the procurement timeline for trade and equipment sellers.

How does this compare with the federal inventory?

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's monthly inventory of generators at plants of 1 MW or more (EIA-860M, September 2026 edition) includes the ones owners report as planned. Only 3 of the 24 on-site plants could be matched to it by name and state, so most of this market is not in the federal data yet.

About half of planned gas turbine capacity, 51%, sits within 40 km of a data center project Spezia tracks. Near is a distance, not proof that a plant serves the data center.

How Spezia counts, and what it leaves out

• Every unit has a quote. A count is kept only when its document states it and names the maker or model. A size is never read as a count: "320 MW of turbines" is not 320 turbines.
• No double counting. Documents about one plant are merged into one record, and each model is counted once, from the strongest and newest document. Other counts stay visible: documents disagree on 4 unit lines.
• Megawatts. 97 units carry the document's own rating and 7,243 use the maker's published rating. 30 have neither and count as units only.
• Partly named plants. 7 plants state a total larger than their named units, usually because only the first phase's machines are public.
• Left out. Backup diesel generators, plants that only serve the grid, and nuclear plans that name no machine. 3 plants with 1.1 GW are left out because no document has mentioned them in the past year: some may have been withdrawn.
• Stages. A stage needs a quote about the plant itself. Approved means a regulator or local board approved the plant or issued a permit for it; a draft permit or an application is not enough. 6 plants have no such quote and count as announced.

What should equipment sales teams do with this?

• Turbine makers. 13.3 GW at 9 plants has no unit count by maker yet. Those permits and filings are the first place to look.
• Engine and fuel cell makers. The units are small, so the count per site is high. Watch the permit applications, which list every unit.
• Distributors and contractors. 12.6 GW is operating or under construction. Each of those plants also needs switchgear, transformers and controls.
• Lenders and investors. Check each plant's status quote before you count its capacity: 16.3 GW is only announced.