The artificial intelligence race is turning into a gas boom.
Orders for new gas turbines doubled in the second quarter of the year, GE Vernova told investors Wednesday, prompting the Boston-based manufacturer to raise its revenue targets for the year.
The results offered evidence of how the dash to develop AI is driving a surge of investment in physical infrastructure and transforming energy markets. GE Vernova said it’s boosting its manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for power equipment like turbines and transformers.
The company’s power division has seen orders for gas turbines grow from $7.1 billion to $16.7 billion compared to the second quarter of 2025, as power companies and technology firms snap up the equipment.
“Around the world, electricity demand is accelerating, driven by economic growth, grid modernization, electrification, data center expansion and the need for more reliable, resilient power,” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik told investors during the company’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday. “As we’ve seen over the past few quarters, these trends are creating sustained demand for our platform of solutions.”
As one of the world’s largest turbine-makers, GE Vernova is a key indicator of how energy companies are planning to meet the electricity demands of new data centers. One of the key questions facing the company was whether it would boost its manufacturing capacity to meet the rush of new orders.
GE Vernova executives touted their efforts to increase the output of their existing factories, by installing new machines to automate manufacturing processes and turn out more turbines. The company is on pace to make 20 gigawatts of gas-fired turbine capacity annually, with a goal of boosting that to 24 GW in 2028 and 30 GW in 2030, Strazik said. GE Vernova has installed 325 new machines aimed at boosting production capacity in its existing factories and is on track to install another 75 by year’s end.
Such moves are essential to meeting its expanding order book. The company’s order backlog has grown from $129 billion during the second quarter of last year to $176 billion during the same time this year.
It also promises to transform power markets. GE Vernova said it had 113 orders for gas turbines in the second quarter, up from 47 the same time last year. Orders for its largest heavy-duty gas turbines rose from 20 to 52 over that time. Most of the orders came from North America, though company executives also highlighted deals originating in the Middle East and South America.
Turbines are not the only components on the rise. The company’s electrification division, which makes grid equipment, saw $6.3 billion in orders during the second quarter, up from $3.3 billion in the same quarter last year. Prolec, a GE Vernova subsidiary, booked $800 million in transformer orders during the first half of the year, Strazik said.
The company’s wind division, by contrast, saw orders fall from $2.1 billion to $1.2 billion, driven in large part by weakening activity in North America. President Donald Trump has targeted wind development by blocking offshore projects and erecting new regulatory barriers for onshore facilities.
The strong interest in gas and grid equipment led GE Vernova to raise its revenue guidance for 2026. The company had expected to see revenues of $44.5 billion to $45.5 billion for the year. It now expects to bring in between $45.5 billion to $46.5 billion.
That didn’t help the company’s share price, which fell 8.7 percent in trading on Wednesday based on lower-than-expected profit margins. The company reported 11.3 percent in profits, lower than the consensus expectation of 11.9 percent, analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note to clients.
