Meta and OpenAI are among the tech companies that are building private power plants that will operate independently of regional grids to supply electricity for their massive buildout of AI data centers.
What’s new: Several off-grid power plants associated with data centers are planned or under construction in the United States, according to regulatory filings, permits, transcripts of conference calls with investors, and other documents, The Washington Post reported. Fueled primarily by natural gas, the plants will be connected directly to data centers, sidestepping the oversight and delays that come with grid connections. The Post’s report is based on a study by energy researcher Cleanview that identified 46 projects, 90 percent of them announced in 2025, to build private power plants that are “behind the meter,” meaning they supply electricity directly to a customer but also connect to the grid. Together they account for 30 percent of all planned data-center capacity in the U.S. Spurred by the White House, executives at Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI agreed to shoulder the costs of building power plants and upgrade the grid to soothe worries about rising electricity prices.
How it works: The names of the tech companies that are building their own power plants are largely obscure in the available documents. The projects, which will drive data centers that are expected to consume gigawatts of power, involve collaborations between tech companies, energy infrastructure builders, and/or local power companies. They’re being developed rapidly, in some cases using atypical generators, as conventional turbines are in short supply.
- Meta is building two private gas-fired plants in Ohio that will generate 400 megawatts, a project called Socrates, to drive a data center that will consume 1 gigawatt. Another Meta project in Texas will connect more than 800 small gas-fired generators to generate 366 megawatts for a 1-gigawatt data center.
- OpenAI and Oracle have a project in New Mexico called Jupiter. It will use large-scale natural gas generators to power a 1 megawatt data center. Jupiter is part of the companies’ broader data-center effort known as Stargate.
- A 1.8-megawatt data-center project in Wyoming will be powered by modified jet engines, each of which will produce 42 megawatts. The generators are designed by Boom Supersonic, an aerospace company partly owned by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who also sits on its board of directors.
Behind the news: All the major tech companies have been scrambling to lock down access to electricity sufficient to support a data-center buildout that is projected to cost $5.2 trillion and consume 156 gigawatts by 2030.
- xAI bypassed the grid to power data centers in 2024, when the company built data centers in Memphis to house its Colossus and Colossus 2 supercomputers. The facilities are powered by a private collection of dozens of temporary, mobile gas turbines despite a ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency that they were being used illegally.
- Meta, in addition to building private power stations in the short term, is pursuing a long-term strategy to build nuclear power plants, which are scheduled to come online in the early 2030s. The company committed to help build new reactors and to purchase electricity from older reactors. These deals are expected to supply more than 6 gigawatts.
- Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft have entered into smaller agreements to obtain nuclear energy. Alphabet is working to reopen a disused nuclear plant in Iowa, Amazon invested in the reactor developer X-Energy, and Microsoft agreed to buy 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity between 2026 and 2030 for an estimated $17 billion.
Why it matters: The rise of private power for data centers reflects a bottleneck as AI companies plan to increase their capacity faster than current energy suppliers can meet. It signals a shift in the ways AI infrastructure, power plants, and public utilities interact, with implications that go well beyond tech companies.
- Demand for AI caused electricity prices to rise at more than double the rate of inflation in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs. Private power plants could help stabilize that impact by reducing the burden on the grid. However, an expert quoted by The Washington Post worries that a boom in private energy generation will drive up electricity prices by boosting demand for generation equipment and expertise.
- More gas-fired power plants mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which are driving climate change. Although big AI companies work hard to use renewable energy and offset greenhouse-gas emissions, the pace of building makes fossil fuels expedient. While public announcements of private-power projects have emphasized renewable, nuclear, or hydrogen power, “the equipment actually being installed in 2025 and 2026 is almost entirely gas-fired,” Cleanview writes.
We’re thinking: Until recently, the cloud-computing leaders have leaned heavily on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, sometimes with an assist from batteries. Their move toward gas-fired power plants is an unfortunate reversal of the effort to remain carbon-neutral.