Crusoe Drops $1.25B Boom Turbine Deal for AI Data Centers

Denver-based AI data center startup Crusoe, which recently raised $3.9 billion, has terminated its partnership to use stationary power plants developed by Boom Supersonic. Crusoe was positioned as the launch customer for Boom's new energy business, having previously agreed to a $1.25 billion contract to purchase 29 of Boom's 42-megawatt Superpower turbines. The deliveries of these turbines, which share 80 percent of their parts with the Symphony engine designed for Boom's Overture supersonic passenger jet, were originally scheduled to begin in 2027.

According to Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl, the partnership dissolved because turbines are no longer part of Crusoe's near-term primary power mix at its major sites. Crusoe, which began in 2018 as a bitcoin miner utilizing excess natural gas, has evolved into a major builder of AI infrastructure. The company operates a 1.2-gigawatt campus in Abilene, Texas, that provides computing power to OpenAI and Oracle. This campus is powered by the grid, utilizing a gas-turbine plant solely for backup power. Crusoe is also constructing a 900-megawatt data center in Abilene for Microsoft, which will rely on on-site gas turbines from other providers.

The cancellation represents a significant setback for Boom Supersonic, which raised $300 million last year to commercialize its turbine business, intending to use those profits to fund its supersonic jet. However, Scholl noted that Boom still plans to deliver 250 megawatts of Superpower turbines to other customers next year, with a target of reaching 1 gigawatt by 2028. For AI infrastructure practitioners, Crusoe's pivot underscores the necessity of maintaining energy flexibility. Rather than locking into single-source proprietary turbine technology, operators are increasingly diversifying their portfolios across wind, solar, batteries, the traditional grid, and varied turbine manufacturers to meet the immense, rapidly evolving power demands of modern AI clusters.