Boom Supersonic raises $300M and pivots engine technology into 42-megawatt AI data center power turbines

Summary

Boom Supersonic has closed a $300 million equity round and is pivoting its proprietary jet engine technology into a commercial power product called Superpower, a 42-megawatt natural gas turbine targeting AI data center operators. Crusoe is the launch customer. CEO Blake Scholl frames the round as the company's final equity raise, with the turbine business designed to generate cash that funds continued development of the Overture supersonic passenger airliner.

The strategic logic is direct. Boom spent nearly four years developing a custom engine core for Overture rather than white-labeling from an established supplier. That decision, widely criticized at the time, now allows the company to adapt the same core into an aeroderivative ground power turbine by removing the front fan, dropping two turbine stages, and adding a free power turbine at the rear that drives a 42-megawatt generator. The configuration mirrors the aeroderivative turbine arrays being deployed by Elon Musk at Colossus and Sam Altman at Stargate.

Manufacturing and Scale

Boom's current factory, approximately 70,000 square feet in South Denver, is targeting 200 megawatts of turbine output over the next 18 months. A second facility, roughly three times larger and opening in early 2026, is designed to reach 2 gigawatts per year of production capacity. The company is building vertically integrated manufacturing, taking raw materials including 17-4 PH hardened stainless steel, forged titanium, and cast Inconel to finished engine components under one roof.

The vertical integration is a deliberate competitive wedge against GE and Rolls-Royce, whose supply chains were largely divested during the Jack Welch era of asset-light management. Boom claims it can turn a turbine blade prototype in 24 hours through in-house 3D printing, heat treatment, and brazing, compared to six to nine months when sourcing from traditional aerospace suppliers. Engineers hired from Pratt & Whitney and GE have described resolving in hours problems that previously took weeks at legacy firms.

Overture Timeline and Strategic Framing

Scholl argues the power turbine business takes Boom's probability of successfully delivering supersonic commercial flight from below 50% to significantly higher. The Overture program remains the stated long-term goal. Boom's XP-1 demonstrator broke the sound barrier in January 2025, which Scholl says contributed to supersonic flight becoming legal again over the United States.

The Superpower turbine has fewer than 2,000 parts compared to the XP-1's 68,000, all of which were safety-critical with a pilot aboard. Scholl describes the turbine program as operationally straightforward relative to what the team has already executed.

Regulatory View

Scholl is sharply critical of the US permitting framework, arguing America operates on a permission-based model rather than a freedom-to-innovate model. His position is that pre-approval requirements for buildings and power plants impose structural delays that are the single largest impediment to physical infrastructure development, and that shifting to a rules-based compliance model with penalties for violations would materially accelerate industrial output.