Looked briefly at BKR.
They are
a bit player in the overall gas turbine market. They are only in the "sub-utility scale" market with aeroderivative turbines (derived from aircraft engines). YTD (through 2Q25) I think they may have booked around $1BN in gas turbines (disclosed $650MM in gas turbines for data centers, add something for LNG) vs GEV YTD booked $7BN in total gas turbines (aeroderiv and heavy-duty). Consider Siemens and Mitsubishi are GEV peers, seems like BKR might have a couple-few percent of the total market.
However,
BKR may be very large in the market for gas turbines at data centers (co-located, distributed, behind-the-meter are terms used). In 2Q they booked 79# gas turbines vs GEV booked 27# aeroderivative gas turbines (the rest of GEV bookings were heavy-duty utility scale).
So,
how large is the data center gas turbine market going to be? Read this
https://www.bloomenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025-Data-Center-Power-Report.pdf which says
4.2GW of co-located data center power has been announced to be built by 2030, and seems like up to half of that - maybe 2.0-2.5GW? - might be gas turbines (fuel cells, diesel generators, solar are other near-term options, with geothermal and nuclear out past 2030). But . . . YTD BKR has already booked 1.2GW of data center gas turbines. I'm not sure how much they've booked total, need to go back and look at 2024, 2023.
My point is,
unless the co-located data center gas turbine (coloDCGT) market grows a lot, these could be a risk that BKR run out of orders to book or at least see their coloDCGT bookings slow down. I would think any slowdown there would make some investors unhappy . . . the ones who bought it as a groovy forever-growing AI play or a cheap and less-recognized play on gas turbines.
What would make the coloDCGT market grow a lot, like double in planned installs by 2030? Maybe utilities can't add power generation and transmission lines fast enough, maybe fuel cells prove less suitable than the Bloomenergy report makes it sound, maybe AI data center capacity add is much larger than currently planned. On the other hand, notice that BKR decided to spend $12BN cash buying GTLS, rather than massively expanding its production capacity for its LM-series gas turbines, why is that (do we know if BKR actually produces its aeroderivative gas turbines, or are they dependent on GE to supply?).
Anway, that's something to put on the "list of things to worry about". It doesn't make the investment decision for me but might affect how much risk I take in the name. Near-term, I want to know why BKR's 2025 and 2026 EPS estimate have been declining (I assume from crappy oilfield services market), if estimates will start rising (feels like maybe at the inflection point now?), what to think about the GTLS acquisition (seems sensible though BKR stock went down on the news, like FLS' did when it was going to acquire GTLS), and if biz for the IET segment is so strong why was 2Q book-to-bill only 1.2X. I'd also like to know if GTLS already has strong business in datacenter cooling, or if that is just a hope-for.
That said, I'm interested in the idea, as a seemingly cheap-ish play on AI and LNG, and think it deserves more examination. Becoming seen as more of an industrial equipment name with reasonable exposure to growth markets like AI and LNG and less of a boom-bust oilfield services name might get it a wide investor audience and higher multiple. What would be nice is if, after the GTLS deal closes, they can get S&P, GICS, and Russell to reclassify the stock from Energy to Industrial.