Fuel cells become the new favorite for AI power supply? Bloom Energy and Brookfield reach a $5 billion data center power supply deal

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Asset management giant Brookfield has reached a partnership with fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy, aiming to provide new energy solutions for AI data centers through the deployment of onsite power generation technology.

According to an announcement released on Monday, Brookfield Asset Management will invest up to $5 billion to deploy Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology. This is Brookfield’s first investment to support its strategy for large AI data center power and computing infrastructure. Boosted by this news, Bloom Energy’s share price surged more than 30% in pre-market trading.

Currently, the AI industry’s massive data center plans are clashing with America’s aging power grid, which often struggles to rapidly deploy additional power capacity. Bloom Energy's fuel cells provide a rapidly deployable onsite power generation solution, as they do not rely on the existing grid, effectively bypassing the limitations of traditional power infrastructure.

The two companies said they are cooperating globally to design and deliver so-called "AI factories" and will announce a specific project location in Europe by the end of this year. This move marks that major investors are actively seeking to leverage alternative energy technologies to address energy constraints facing AI development.

AI Compute Expansion Encounters Grid Bottlenecks—Onsite Power Becomes Key

The ambitions of the AI industry are placing unprecedented pressure on power systems. For example, the data center cluster jointly announced by Nvidia and OpenAI is planned to require up to 10 gigawatts of electricity, a scale comparable to the entire city of New York during summer peak hours. However, these grand plans face a harsh reality: America's grid infrastructure is aging, and adding new power supply capacity is a slow and complex process.

In addition to insufficient grid capacity, the surging power demand from data centers could also exacerbate consumer electricity price hikes, triggering broader socioeconomic issues. Against this backdrop, finding independent, efficient, and rapidly deployable power sources for data centers has become an urgent priority for tech companies and investors.

As a solution not reliant on the grid, onsite power generation is becoming key to solving the AI power supply challenge. Last week, Jensen Huang stated that the industry needs to build generation facilities independent of the grid to meet demand quickly and protect consumers from rising electricity prices:

“The self-generation model for data centers could be much faster than getting on the grid—we have to do so.”

Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology precisely meets this need. By deploying fuel cells onsite at data centers, enterprises can obtain stable, reliable power supplies without waiting for grid upgrades or the construction of new transmission lines. This model not only enables rapid deployment, but also gives data center operators greater autonomy and cost control over energy.

Brookfield and Bloom’s Global Layout

This partnership is strategically significant for both parties. For Brookfield, this is its first major investment to support its new strategy for AI data center power and computing infrastructure. In recent years, the company has made significant investments in Europe, previously announcing a plan to invest €20 billion to develop AI projects in France, aiming to create Europe’s largest AI infrastructure cluster.

For Bloom Energy, this partnership with Brookfield is an important milestone in the large-scale commercialization of its technology in the AI field. According to the company, Bloom Energy has already deployed hundreds of megawatts of fuel cells through partnerships with utilities such as American Electric Power and data center developers including Equinix and Oracle. This new $5 billion agreement will greatly expand its business scale and market influence.

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