Developers who can’t get a gas turbine are buying engines instead.
Global Energy Monitor’s August 25 update to its Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker found that U.S. gas-fired capacity in development explicitly tied to powering data centers has jumped from 97 GW to 189 GW in six months. Total U.S. gas capacity in development rose 50 percent over the same period, from 252 GW to 378 GW, which is now roughly a third of the global pipeline. GEM puts the capital cost of the U.S. buildout above $647 billion, a figure it derives itself rather than one observed in the market.
Reciprocating engines are eating the turbine backlog
The substitution is the part contractors should read closely. Engine capacity in development more than doubled, from 31 GW to 67 GW. For projects tied specifically to data centers it more than tripled, to 45 GW, about a quarter of all in-development data-center gas. Engines and simple-cycle turbines together now account for roughly half the generating technology in data-center-linked projects, against 17 percent of everything else globally. GEM attributes the shift to the multi-year lead times quoted by the three leading turbine manufacturers, and writes that developers are turning to engines and smaller aeroderivative units “in a bid to skip the turbine supply constraints entirely.”
A reciprocating-engine plant is a different job than a 2×1 combined cycle. Smaller foundations, more units, more modular delivery, a shorter schedule, and a mechanical and electrical scope that suits a different subcontractor bench. Estimators pricing off combined-cycle history will be wrong in both directions.
Texas has more gas in development than any country
Texas is carrying 122 GW, up 41.4 GW in six months. Seventy-seven gigawatts of that is for data centers. Projects actually under construction in the U.S. rose 76 percent in the first half to 52 GW, of which 16.9 GW is data-center-directed. On GEM’s numbers the U.S. is now building about twice as much gas capacity as China, which has 24 GW underway.
Industrial loads are pulling in the same direction. voestalpine’s electric arc furnace program at Donawitz and Linz needs grid connections sized above 100 megawatts at each site, and that is one company inserting two furnaces. The competition for interconnection queue positions, transformers and high-voltage electrical contractors is not a data-center-only problem.
A pipeline is not a backlog
GEM’s own caveat is the one worth repeating. About three-quarters of the global pipeline sits in the announced or pre-construction phase, and moratoriums and local opposition are already reshaping parts of it. A 378 GW number describes intent. Anyone building a hiring plan off it should treat those announcements as options, not work.
The engine trend is the more durable finding, because it responds to a supply constraint rather than a demand forecast. Turbine backlogs won’t clear quickly, and every month they don’t, the case for a bank of engines behind the meter gets stronger. That’s a structural change in what actually gets built next to a data center, and it holds whether or not the 189 GW ever reaches financial close. Details are in GEM’s August 2026 report, with additional coverage from RTO Insider.