News · Data-center power

Data centers now need hundreds of megawatts on site. Rolls-Royce Power Systems names them a main driver of its growth

Rolls-Royce Power Systems, the maker of mtu engines and generators, reported 2025 revenue up 19% and order intake up 21%, with data centers among the main growth drivers. Its own description of the market: facilities the size of several football fields, needing reliable power in the hundreds of megawatts.

Hyper Tech · November 12, 2026 · 3 min read

Concept visualization: a CROSSOVER power island of six aero-core turbine-generator units on a common 800 V DC bus, with shared cooling, fuel, controls and emissions equipment and a DC feeder to the data hall.
ConceptA CROSSOVER power island: six units on a common 800 V DC bus, with shared balance of plant and a DC feeder to the data hall. Hyper Tech concept visualization, not built equipment; the configuration and footprint are indicative.

What Rolls-Royce Power Systems reported

In its results for 2025, published on February 27, 2026, Rolls-Royce Power Systems reported strong results and record investment in new capacity, in Germany and in the United States.

€5.72 billion2025 revenue, up 19%
€7.14 billionorder intake, up 21%
17.4%return on sales, up from 13.1%
23,000 m²of new production area in Mankato, Minnesota

“The data center business grew significantly in 2025. Facilities are becoming larger, more energy-intensive and indispensable for modern AI applications. Many data centers today are the size of several football fields and require a reliable power supply in the range of hundreds of megawatts. Rolls-Royce supplies systems that stabilize grids, cushion peak loads and take over without interruption in an emergency. Already today, a significant portion of global Internet traffic is secured by mtu emergency power generators.”

Rolls-Royce Power Systems, results press release, February 27, 2026 (spelling Americanized)
  • Emergency power at scale. The release names the mtu 16V4000 and 20V4000 emergency generators for data centers.
  • New capacity takes years. The company is expanding its US sites in Aiken, South Carolina, and Mankato, Minnesota, and building a new plant in Friedrichshafen where its Series 4000 engines will be assembled from 2028.

What this shows

One of the largest suppliers of data-center power equipment now describes its customers’ sites in hundreds of megawatts. Emergency generators keep those sites running when the grid fails. But first a site needs power to run on every day, and in many regions the grid connection for that is years away. The question for AI campuses is shifting from backup to prime power: where hundreds of megawatts will come from, and how soon.

Where CROSSOVER fits

Concept visualization: the Hyper Tech axial-flux DC generator on its skid, the housing cut away to show rotor discs and stators, with DC outputs on top.
ConceptThe Hyper Tech axial-flux DC generator, housing cut away. Hyper Tech concept visualization; the number of stages shown is illustrative.
  • Prime power, behind the meter. CROSSOVER is designed to run continuously on pipeline natural gas, so a site does not have to wait for a large grid connection. It is not an emergency generator.
  • 20–24 MW-class units that add up. Each unit is built around an existing aero-engine core. Several units share cooling, fuel, controls and emissions equipment as one power island, so a site adds capacity unit by unit toward the hundreds of megawatts that large AI campuses need.
  • 800 V DC at the generator. Hyper Tech generators make 800 V DC directly, on six isolated buses per unit, with no medium- and low-voltage transformers, switchgear or separate rectifiers between the turbine and the racks.
  • On the 800 V DC timetable. CROSSOVER targets its first unit and pilot in Q2 2028 and volume production in 2029.

Read with care: Hyper Tech is not affiliated with Rolls-Royce or Rolls-Royce Power Systems. Figures and the quotation about Rolls-Royce Power Systems are as published in its press release, linked below. CROSSOVER is a development program; ratings, configurations, footprints and dates are design targets.

Planning a campus that needs hundreds of megawatts?

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Sources

  1. Rolls-Royce Power Systems: “Strong results and record investments: Rolls-Royce Power Systems continues on growth path”, press release, February 27, 2026.
  2. Hyper Tech: CROSSOVER, power for AI data centers and CROSSOVER: 72 hours to power.

Earlier posts: Retired jet engines are powering AI data centers · 800 V DC at the generator · The UK’s largest planned AI supercomputer waits for grid power · Vantage reserves 1 GW of 800 V DC converters