Bloom Energy, a company specializing in field power supply, announced on April 13 that it has reached a deal with Oracle for a total of 2.8GW of modular fuel cell systems, with the first 1.2GW currently being deployed.
According to data from Bloomberg, nearly half of the data centers planned for construction in the US this year will face delays or cancellations, with a major reason being the shortage of power infrastructure equipment. This is a pressing issue for Oracle, which is aggressively expanding into AI cloud services.
Due to the slow pace of grid infrastructure development, an increasing number of newly built data centers are opting for on-site power solutions during their initial operational phase, with gas turbine systems being the most common.
In contrast, fuel cells theoretically offer higher energy efficiency and have a lower environmental impact, thus minimizing concerns from nearby residents.
Oracle OCI Executive Vice President Mahesh Thiagarajan stated:
“We continue to see strong demand for OCI services in the global market, which spans our entire data center portfolio, including large-scale GW-level AI data centers.
“Customers expect their AI workloads and new AI applications to run at peak performance. Bloom’s fuel cell technology will join OCI’s broad energy portfolio, further supporting our cutting-edge AI infrastructure by providing reliable, clean power that can be quickly deployed and easily scaled.”
