AI Data Center Natural Gas Turbines: 2026 Operator Brief

GE Vernova's total backlog reached $176 billion at Q2 2026, with gas turbine production slots mostly sold out through 2030 and a $200 billion backlog projected by 2027.

GE Vernova Q2 2026 orders rose 88 percent year over year with Power segment orders up 134 percent to $16.7 billion; gas turbine production is ramping from about 20 GW per year to 24 GW in 2028 and a targeted 30 GW by 2030, with more than half of 2031 slots expected sold by the end of 2026.

GE Vernova's gas turbine backlog plus slot reservations reached 100 GW in Q1 2026, and the company is investing $160 million to expand its Greenville, South Carolina turbine plant.

Siemens Energy posted record quarterly orders of €17.9 billion with an all-time-high order backlog of €162 billion in Q3 fiscal 2026.

Siemens Energy's gas services division closed the June 2026 quarter with a firm gas turbine backlog near 69 GW; lead times stretch to three years or more, and its CEO sizes the addressable gas turbine market at up to 120 GW per year, roughly half in the United States.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is investing more than $618 million in its Japan and United States gas turbine operations and plans to double large gas turbine production capacity by fiscal 2030, driven by United States data center demand.

New combined-cycle plants often cannot come online until at least 2030-2031, and all three major OEMs now require reservation fees to hold manufacturing slots; one utility disclosed a $25 million reservation fee for a single turbine.

Combined-cycle projects completing in 2026-2027 reported $1,116 to $1,427 per kilowatt, while projects targeting 2030-2031 completion routinely report $2,000 per kilowatt or more, up as much as 75 percent.

Roughly 62 GW of new United States data center capacity is forecast through 2030, with behind-the-meter projects accounting for about 40 percent of installed capacity and roughly 1.3 Bcf per day of incremental gas demand.

About 56 GW of behind-the-meter data center generation is planned across 46 United States projects, with 90 percent of it announced in 2025.

Caterpillar posted a record $20.5 billion quarter with power generation retail sales up 72 percent on data center demand, and is restarting production of a 10 MW medium-speed gas engine to restore 1.5 GW of annual capacity.

Wärtsilä booked a 412 MW engine order for a single Ohio hyperscale data center, its fourth United States data center award, taking its United States data center engine capacity sold past 1.6 GW.

INNIO signed a framework agreement reserving 1.25 GW of Jenbacher gas engine capacity over three years, largely aimed at hyperscale and colocation data center demand.

Cummins is supplying natural gas generator sets for a fully off-grid behind-the-meter prime-power microgrid at a West Texas AI campus, with phased deployment starting 2027.

PROENERGY is delivering thirteen 50 MW aeroderivative gensets, 650 MW total, for hyperscale AI campuses, each manufactured and tested at its Missouri facility before shipment.

Bloom Energy signed a master services agreement covering up to 2.8 GW of fuel cells for a single hyperscaler's AI buildout, and has deployed a system in 55 days.

xAI stood up its first Memphis campus in 122 days and bridged its second site on gas turbines and batteries while permanent generation followed.

Homer City in Pennsylvania is being redeveloped into up to 4.4 GW of gas-fired capacity for AI load using seven heavy-duty hydrogen-enabled turbines, with first deliveries beginning 2026.

Williams is building two 200 MW behind-the-meter generation sites in Ohio serving data center load, with in-service dates inside 2026.

Energy Transfer signed its first direct data center gas supply deal, up to 450,000 MMBtu per day of firm supply to a Texas campus, enough for roughly 1.2 GW of behind-the-meter power under a ten-plus-year commitment.

Kinder Morgan's project backlog stood at $9.6 billion in July 2026, about 92 percent natural gas projects and over 60 percent supporting power generation demand.

Analytics tracking counts more than 150 United States gas pipeline projects representing roughly 150 Bcf per day of capacity, much of it smaller laterals linking data centers with gas-fired power.