A deal that would have put jet engine technology to work powering AI data centers is off. Crusoe, which builds data centers for AI, has dropped its order for 29 natural gas turbines from Boom Supersonic, worth $1.25 billion. Boom CEO Blake Scholl announced the split on Thursday.
The order was the reason Boom's turbine business existed. In December 2025 the company unveiled Superpower, a 42-megawatt gas turbine that shares core technology with the engine it is building for its supersonic airliner. Crusoe was the launch customer, and Boom raised $300 million at the same time to build the product.
Why Crusoe walked away
According to Scholl, turbines are no longer part of the main power plan at Crusoe's Abilene site in Texas and its other near-term projects. "A launch partnership just didn't make sense," he told TechCrunch.
Crusoe describes the change as flexibility. It says it picks the power source for each site as needs change, from turbines to wind, solar, batteries and the grid. Its 1.2-gigawatt Abilene campus runs on grid power, with gas turbines only as backup.
Boom's plan without its anchor
Boom says it will still deliver about 250 megawatts of Superpower turbines to other sites in 2027 and aims for 1 gigawatt in 2028. It has not named those customers. When it launched the business, it listed Crusoe's order as its whole backlog.
That makes the next announcement from Boom the one that counts. For now, the turbine business has no public customer.
