Crusoe, a Denver-based AI data center startup, has ended its $1.25 billion deal to use Boom Supersonic's turbines for power at its Abilene, Texas, campus, which serves OpenAI. The company had signed on to be the first customer for Boom's new business, which sells natural gas-fired stationary power plants based on its supersonic jet engine technology.

Boom Supersonic, which is developing a supersonic passenger jet called Overture, launched a new business last year to sell a version of the engine it’s developing for that jet as natural gas-fired stationary power plants. Its Superpower turbine shares about 80% of the same parts with that airborne engine, called Symphony.

"The TL/DR is that turbines are no longer part of Crusoe’s near term primary power mix at Abilene/etc., so a launch partnership just didn’t make sense," said Blake Scholl, Boom Supersonic CEO. Scholl noted that other customers were in its pipeline, and that Boom will deliver about 250MW of Superpowers next year to other sites, targeting 1GW in 2028.

Crusoe confirmed to TechCrunch that it is no longer doing business with Boom. "We build AI factories from the power up, and we’re bringing new campuses online across the country, powered by innovative energy sources," said Andrew Schmitt, Crusoe spokesperson.

"As our portfolio grows, we stay flexible, choosing the energy solutions that are right for each site as its needs evolve — including turbines, along with wind, solar, batteries and the grid."

The announcement follows Boom’s $300 million raise last year, largely to commercialize the new business. Scholl had previously told TechCrunch that the idea was to use profits from the stationary power plant business to fund the development of Overture.

Crusoe’s initial 1.2 gigawatt data center in Abilene that was built for Oracle and OpenAI is powered by the grid, with a gas-turbine power plant used for backup power only.

Crusoe is also building a 900 megawatt data center in Abilene for Microsoft, which will be powered by on-site gas turbines. Losing its launch customer is seemingly a setback for Boom, which raised $300 million last year, largely to commercialize the new business.

Source: techcrunch