An old jet engine removed from a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 can be worth more as a generator for an AI data center than a parts dealer could recover by selling its components. This new reality is helping to spawn an industry built around the premise that there’s money to be made by repurposing retired turbine engines in the data-center era.
AI data center developers can wait years for a grid connection, and that’s a problem in an industry that is racing to build out computing infrastructure. Buying retired jet engines and converting them into generators gives developers a way to produce electricity on site and bring their servers online far sooner.
FTAI Aviation, a New York City company that repairs and leases jet engines, has contracts to deliver more than 100 CFM56-based generators to customers in the US and Canada in 2027 and 2028.
FTAI’s generator, called the Mod-1, uses the core of a CFM56, one of the most widely flown engines in commercial aviation. In tests at its Miami facility, the company said the unit met its targets of supplying 23 megawatts of continuous power and 25 megawatts at peak output. FTAI tested the unit on both natural gas and liquid fuel.
An unnamed cloud computing company placed a $1.465 billion order in July 2026 through J&F Power Systems, FTAI’s joint venture with Jereh Group. The companies expect to deliver the generators in batches through November 2027.
At Arizona’s Pinal Airpark, where commercial aircraft are stored and dismantled, Nikki Thomas of Ascent Aviation Services told The New York Times that inquiries from energy developers had picked up over the past year. The newspaper also reported that xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, had installed eight converted aircraft turbines in Mississippi, citing state permits and satellite imagery.
Power companies have used aircraft engines for years. Missouri-based ProEnergy developed its PE6000 with a European utility, starting with the core of a GE CF6-80C2, an engine used on the Boeing 747. ProEnergy overhauls the core and fits it with components designed for power generation. By 2023, one of its turbines had logged 750 hours at a Houston generating facility.
What has changed for the aviation industry is who wants to buy an engine at retirement. FTAI Chairman and CEO Joe Adams told investors that its power business would target CFM56s otherwise headed for disassembly. “They’re worth more to us than they’re worth in the secondary market for part value,” he said.
Those engines still have value to airlines, however. AerFin, a UK aircraft and engine specialist, bought three CFM56s for teardown and found enough usable hardware to put one back into service. It noted that technicians at its South Wales facility took two serviceable modules from one engine and installed them in another. Now, companies like AerFin face new competition for retired aircraft engines from the data center industry.
FTAI itself buys engines for both purposes. Under an agreement announced in October 2026, it supplies United Airlines with a serviceable CFM56-7B ahead of a scheduled engine removal, then buys the engine United takes off the wing. That gives the airline a replacement without waiting for an overhaul.
Once FTAI owns the engine, it can decide whether the usable parts are worth more in another aircraft or as a generator.
Boom Supersonic, meanwhile, sees a market for its engine technology on the ground before its planned Overture airliner ever carries a passenger. The Colorado company is developing a new turbine core for both Symphony, the jet engine intended for Overture, and Superpower, a 42-megawatt natural gas turbine for AI data centers.
Whether Overture will enter airline service remains an open question, even for one of its prospective customers. United Airlines has agreed to buy 15 aircraft if they meet its requirements, but CEO Scott Kirby said in an October 2026 interview that Boom would miss its 2029 target for entry into service. “It’s not going to happen in ’29. It’s going to take longer,” Kirby said.
Boom already has a customer for the ground turbine. AI infrastructure company Crusoe has ordered 29 Superpower units, and Boom is targeting the first deliveries for mid-2027. In October, Boom completed the first prototype core for both programs. Its next step is to fire up the core at its Colorado test site.