Bloom Energy
Last reviewed
Jun 7, 2026
Sources
21 citations
Review status
Source-backed
Revision
v1 ยท 2,859 words
Improve this article
Add missing citations, update stale details, or suggest a clearer explanation.
Suggest edit
CtrlK
Last reviewed
Jun 7, 2026
Sources
21 citations
Review status
Source-backed
Revision
v1 ยท 2,859 words
Add missing citations, update stale details, or suggest a clearer explanation.
Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE: BE) is an American power-generation company based in San Jose, California, that designs and manufactures solid oxide fuel cells, sold as the Bloom Energy Server, which produce electricity on site from natural gas, biogas, or hydrogen through an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion. Founded in 2001 by K.R. Sridhar and colleagues, originally under the name Ion America, the company spent more than a decade and over $1 billion in venture capital developing its technology before going public in 2018. Long pitched as a cleaner alternative to diesel generators and the grid for commercial and industrial customers, Bloom became one of the most closely watched energy stocks of 2025 and 2026 as the energy demands of artificial intelligence pushed AI data center operators toward its fuel cells for fast, behind-the-meter power that sidesteps multi-year grid interconnection queues. Multibillion-dollar agreements with Oracle, Brookfield, and American Electric Power, announced between October 2025 and April 2026, drove the company to record revenue and a swing to GAAP profitability.
K.R. Sridhar was a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering and director of the Space Technologies Laboratory at the University of Arizona. In the 1990s his lab was asked by NASA to study how humans might live on Mars, and the team built a device that used solar power to convert Martian carbon dioxide and water into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for fuel, using a solid oxide electrolyzer. The instrument was slated to fly on the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander as part of the Mars ISPP Precursor experiment. After NASA cancelled that mission, Sridhar reasoned that the same electrochemical cell could be run in reverse, combining oxygen and a fuel to make electricity. In 2001 he co-founded the company as Ion America, with co-founders John Finn, Matthias Gottmann, James McElroy, and Dien Nguyen. The startup moved to the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley in 2002 and renamed itself Bloom Energy in 2006.
Bloom raised more than $1 billion in venture capital before listing on the New York Stock Exchange in July 2018 under the ticker BE, an offering that raised roughly $270 million to scale manufacturing and product development. The company first drew wide public attention with a 2010 segment on CBS's 60 Minutes that revealed the previously secretive startup and its roster of large corporate customers. By 2025 Bloom employed about 2,200 people, held more than 1,000 patents worldwide, and had installed on the order of 1.4 to 1.5 gigawatts of capacity across more than 1,000 sites in nine countries.
A fuel cell produces electricity through an electrochemical reaction instead of burning fuel. In Bloom's solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), a ceramic electrolyte made from a sand-based material (yttria-stabilized zirconia) sits between an anode and a cathode, and the cell runs hot, at roughly 800 degrees Celsius (about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit). Oxygen from the air passes through the cathode while a fuel such as reformed natural gas passes over the anode; oxygen ions migrate through the electrolyte and react with the fuel, releasing electrons that flow out as direct-current electricity. Because there is no flame, the process emits effectively none of the nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), or particulate matter associated with engines and turbines. It does still emit carbon dioxide when the fuel is natural gas or biogas, because those fuels contain carbon.
The commercial product is the Bloom Energy Server, sometimes called the Bloom Box, a unit that stacks many cells together and ships in modules that scale from tens to hundreds of megawatts. According to Bloom's February 2026 data sheet for the Energy Server 6.5, the system reaches a cumulative electrical efficiency between about 53 and 65 percent (lower heating value, net AC), with an average lifetime electrical efficiency near 54 percent, higher than a comparable gas turbine or reciprocating engine. When the waste heat is captured in a combined heat and power configuration, Bloom says total efficiency can exceed 90 percent. The servers are fuel-flexible, running on natural gas, biogas, blended hydrogen, or pure hydrogen, and the company markets them as deployable in as little as 90 days, modular from roughly 20 to 500 megawatts, and capable of up to 99.999 percent (five nines) availability.
| Specification (Energy Server 6.5) | Value |
|---|---|
| Technology | Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) |
| Fuels | Natural gas, biogas, blended or pure hydrogen |
| Process | Electrochemical, no combustion |
| Operating temperature | About 800 C (about 1,500 F) |
| Electrical efficiency | About 53 to 65% (LHV net AC); about 54% lifetime average |
| Combined heat and power efficiency | Greater than 90% |
| Combustion pollutants (NOx, SOx, particulates) | Effectively none |
| Stated deployment time | As little as 90 days |
| Stated availability | Up to 99.999% (five nines) |
Bloom also sells a high-temperature electrolyzer that runs its cell in reverse, using electricity and heat to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The company says the high operating temperature lets the unit produce hydrogen with roughly 20 to 25 percent less electricity than conventional low-temperature electrolyzers when a source of heat, such as steam from a nuclear or industrial plant, is available.
The boom in AI data center construction created a power-supply bottleneck that became Bloom's largest opportunity. New campuses each need hundreds of megawatts to more than a gigawatt, yet connecting large new loads to the electric grid can take years; The Register reported that grid-connection requests in parts of the United States can face waits of up to seven years. Fuel cells can be installed behind the meter on a customer's own site in months, drawing on existing natural gas pipelines, which lets a data center start operating without waiting in the interconnection queue. By late 2025 Bloom said it had deployed about 1.5 gigawatts across more than 1,200 installations worldwide, and it set a goal of doubling annual manufacturing capacity from 1 gigawatt to 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026.
| Date | Counterparty | Scope | Value or capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2024 | American Electric Power | Framework: 100 MW firm plus 900 MW option | First major US utility fuel cell order |
| Oct 13, 2025 | Brookfield Asset Management | Deploy fuel cells at global AI "factories"; Bloom as preferred provider | Up to $5 billion |
| Oct 30, 2025 | Oracle | Initial on-site power agreement | Expanded in April 2026 |
| Jan 2026 | American Electric Power | Option exercised; plant near Cheyenne, Wyoming | About 900 MW, about $2.65 billion |
| Apr 13, 2026 | Oracle | Master services agreement for US data centers | Up to 2.8 GW (1.2 GW contracted) |
| Apr 27, 2026 | Oracle and BorderPlex Digital Assets | Project Jupiter, Dona Ana County, New Mexico | Up to 2.45 GW |
On October 13, 2025, Bloom and Brookfield Asset Management announced a strategic partnership under which Brookfield committed to invest up to $5 billion to deploy Bloom's fuel cells at AI data centers, which the two companies branded "AI factories," around the world. Bloom became Brookfield's preferred on-site power provider for those projects, and Brookfield brought its project-development and financing capacity to the integration of compute, cooling, and local power on single sites. Citing forecasts that US AI power demand could surpass 100 gigawatts by 2035, the companies framed the deal as a first phase of a longer build-out.
Bloom first announced an agreement with Oracle on October 30, 2025. On April 13, 2026, the two companies expanded it into a master services agreement for up to 2.8 gigawatts of fuel cells for Oracle's US data centers, with an initial 1.2 gigawatts contracted for deployment running into 2027. Oracle's build-out is tied to its roughly $300 billion cloud contract with OpenAI. Bloom said it had delivered a fully operational system to an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure site in 55 days, ahead of a 90-day target, and it issued Oracle a stock warrant on April 9, 2026, under terms set in the October 2025 agreement. On April 27, 2026, Oracle, Bloom, and developer BorderPlex Digital Assets said Bloom fuel cells would supply up to 2.45 gigawatts at Project Jupiter, an AI data center campus in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. The fuel cells replace previously planned gas turbines and diesel generators with what the partners described as one of the largest data center microgrids in the United States, cutting NOx emissions by about 92 percent versus the turbine plan and using a negligible amount of water.
In November 2024, the utility American Electric Power signed a framework with Bloom for an initial 100 megawatts plus an option for up to 900 more, the first large commitment by a US utility to distributed fuel cells for data centers. In early January 2026, an unregulated AEP subsidiary exercised most of that option, agreeing to an unconditional purchase of roughly 900 megawatts of Bloom fuel cells valued at about $2.65 billion, which Bloom described as the largest commercial order in the fuel cell industry's history. The plant, to be built near Cheyenne, Wyoming, is backed by a 20-year offtake contract covering 100 percent of its output to a customer Bloom called "high investment grade." It will help power the Cheyenne AI Factory, a campus developed by AI-infrastructure firm Crusoe and pipeline company Tallgrass that was first announced at 1.8 gigawatts in 2025 and approved for expansion toward 2.7 gigawatts in early 2026.
Bloom's longer-standing data center customers include Equinix, which has used Bloom fuel cells at colocation sites since the mid-2010s and contracted additional capacity in February 2025. Across the sector, one tally counted about $7.65 billion in data center fuel cell agreements in the first 90 days of 2026, with Bloom capturing the largest share. The shift placed Bloom among competing approaches to powering AI load behind the meter or on site, including gas turbines from suppliers such as GE Vernova, nuclear plants being recontracted by operators such as Constellation Energy, and large battery installations.
Bloom's revenue accelerated sharply as data center orders landed. The company reported record full-year 2025 revenue of $2.02 billion, up 37.3 percent from $1.47 billion in 2024, and reached GAAP operating profitability for the year, with operating income of $72.8 million. It still posted a full-year GAAP net loss of $88.4 million, weighed down by non-operating charges that included a roughly $66 million expense tied to inducing the conversion of convertible debt and losses from equity-method affiliates. In the first quarter of 2026 (the three months ended March 31, 2026), revenue jumped about 130 percent year over year to $751.1 million, product revenue rose about 208 percent, and the company swung to GAAP net income of $70.7 million. Management raised full-year 2026 guidance to revenue of $3.4 billion to $3.8 billion. Bloom ended the quarter with about $2.49 billion in cash and equivalents and a total contracted backlog of roughly $20 billion.
| Metric | FY2024 | FY2025 | Q1 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.47B | $2.02B | $751.1M |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | n/a | +37.3% | +130.4% |
| GAAP gross margin | 27.5% | 29.0% | 30.0% |
| GAAP operating income | $22.9M | $72.8M | n/a |
| GAAP net income (loss) | $(29.2)M | $(88.4)M | $70.7M |
| Non-GAAP operating income | $107.6M | $221.0M | $129.7M |
| Cash and equivalents (period end) | n/a | $2.45B | $2.49B |
The stock reflected the turnaround, rallying roughly 75 percent in January 2026 alone and repeatedly setting record highs through the spring as the Oracle and AEP deals were disclosed.
Bloom's central environmental claim, that its fuel cells are cleaner than the alternatives, has long been debated because the servers most often run on natural gas and therefore emit carbon dioxide. A gas-fed fuel cell is lower-carbon than a diesel generator and, in some regions, than the local electricity mix, but it is not zero-carbon, and the company's marketing has at times outpaced measured performance. Data filed with Delaware regulators for a large Bloom installation showed emissions of roughly 823 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour in 2014, below the local grid but above the figure Bloom had advertised, a gap attributed partly to efficiency that declines as cells age.
In 2019, the short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report alleging that Bloom had used aggressive accounting to obscure servicing costs and defer write-downs, that it carried roughly $2.2 billion in undisclosed liabilities for servicing aging fuel cell stacks, and that its real-world carbon emissions were close to those of a modern gas plant. Bloom rejected the report as inaccurate and misleading, saying its servers were the most efficient commercially available way to convert natural gas into delivered electricity and offered the greatest available carbon reduction among gas-fueled generators. Stack degradation, which forces periodic and costly replacement of the fuel cell modules, remains an inherent cost of the technology that Bloom manages through long-term service agreements.
More recently, reporters covering the AI data center deals have pressed Bloom on basic operational questions, such as whether specific projects will burn natural gas or hydrogen and how the fuel will be delivered, that the company has not always answered, and have noted that fuel cells can be expensive to deploy relative to some alternatives. Market commentary has also questioned whether the surge in Bloom's stock reflects durable demand or enthusiasm tied to the broader AI infrastructure boom.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2001 | Founded as Ion America after the cancelled NASA Mars Surveyor 2001 project |
| 2002 | Moves to NASA Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley |
| 2006 | Renamed Bloom Energy |
| 2010 | Public reveal on CBS's 60 Minutes |
| 2018 | IPO on the NYSE (ticker BE), raising about $270 million |
| 2019 | Hindenburg Research short-seller report; Bloom rebuts it |
| Nov 2024 | First American Electric Power fuel cell framework |
| Oct 2025 | Brookfield $5 billion partnership; initial Oracle agreement |
| Jan 2026 | AEP exercises roughly 900 MW option (about $2.65 billion) for Cheyenne |
| Apr 2026 | Oracle expansion to 2.8 GW; Project Jupiter (up to 2.45 GW) |