Crusoe drops $1.25 billion Boom turbine deal for AI data center power

Crusoe, a Denver-based developer of AI data centers, has abandoned a $1.25 billion plan to power its facilities with turbines from Boom Supersonic, according to TechCrunch. The deal, under which Crusoe had agreed to buy 29 of Boom's 42-megawatt Superpower turbines with first deliveries planned for 2027, would have made Crusoe the launch customer for Boom's stationary power business.

The split was confirmed by Boom CEO Blake Scholl in a post on X, and by Crusoe itself, which told TechCrunch it is no longer doing business with the company.

A jet engine repurposed for the grid

Boom Supersonic is best known for Overture, a supersonic passenger jet in development. Last year it started a side business selling a ground-based version of the jet's Symphony engine as natural gas-fired power plants. According to TechCrunch, the Superpower turbine shares roughly 80% of its parts with the airborne engine, letting Boom sell into a market where electricity demand is being pushed sharply higher by AI.

Crusoe looked like a natural first buyer. Founded in 2018 as a bitcoin miner running on excess natural gas at oil fields, it has grown into one of the largest AI data center builders, with a major campus in Abilene, Texas, that supplies computing power to OpenAI.

Why Crusoe walked away

Writing on X, Scholl said turbines no longer feature in Crusoe's near-term power plans at Abilene and other sites, which made a launch partnership unworkable. He added that Boom has other customers in its pipeline, expects to deliver about 250 megawatts of Superpower turbines to other sites next year, and is targeting 1 gigawatt in 2028.

A Crusoe spokesperson, Andrew Schmitt, said the company designs its facilities around power first and picks energy sources site by site as needs evolve, with turbines sitting alongside wind, solar, batteries and the grid as options.

The situation in Abilene illustrates the point. According to Crusoe, its initial 1.2-gigawatt campus there, built for Oracle and OpenAI, is powered by the grid, with a gas-turbine plant used only for backup. A second, 900-megawatt Abilene campus being built for Microsoft will run on on-site gas turbines.

A setback for Boom's plan to fund its jet

For Boom, losing its launch customer is a notable blow. TechCrunch reports the company raised $300 million last year largely to commercialize the turbine business, with the idea that profits from selling power plants would help fund development of Overture. Scholl could not be reached for comment before publication, TechCrunch said.

Scholl struck a conciliatory tone toward Crusoe, crediting the company with helping shape the Superpower product and leaving the door open to working together again if turbines return to Crusoe's plans.

Why it matters

Power has become the binding constraint on AI infrastructure, and this episode shows how quickly plans change when grid capacity or simpler alternatives are available. Crusoe's shift suggests that large-scale builders will favour the grid and proven generation where possible, treating novel hardware as an option rather than a foundation. For Boom, the loss removes a marquee reference customer from a business that was meant to bankroll its supersonic jet, raising the stakes on its claim that roughly 250 megawatts of deliveries to other sites next year can make up the difference.