With the stock market continuing to be buoyed by the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), tech companies these days aren't short of ambitions. They could soon, however, be short of grid electricity.
Just consider this: More than 35 gigawatts (GW) of data center capacity are currently under construction in North America, according to JLL. Can you guess what else draws approximately 35 GW of electricity per year? An entire industrialized nation like Italy or the U.K.
The surging demand for electricity from data centers is so consequential to the U.S. grid that President Donald Trump addressed it in the State of the Union. To paraphrase: Major tech companies are obligated to build their own power plants -- or electricity prices will soar and communities will fight back.
Building a power plant next to a data center is, of course, no small feat. That is, unless the power plant is made of small boxes that can generate clean power without any connection to the grid. Enter Bloom Energy (BE +1.73%).
NYSE: BE
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Thinking outside the grid, but inside the box
Bloom Energy may be one of the most important energy companies on the market. In a nutshell, it makes solid oxide fuel cell systems ("Bloom Energy Servers") for on-site power generation. These boxlike servers convert fuel (like natural gas) into electricity through an electrochemical process without combustion.
It's a pretty neat concept. But it gets more interesting. Bloom's servers are modular and scalable: Customers can add more boxes as their electricity needs change. The company is also exploring other fuel options like hydrogen and biogas to make the energy generation carbon-free. Here's what a Bloom system looks like in the wild:
Image source: Bloom Energy.
2025 was a record year for Bloom, with four consecutive quarters of revenue growth. The company projects it will generate over $3 billion in revenue for 2026, which would make it another record year.
Data by YCharts
Bloom is on a roll, and things seem to be getting better. In October 2025, it announced a $5 billion partnership with Brookfield Asset Managementin which Bloom servers will be deployed for AI infrastructure. That brought the company's product backlog up to $6 billion, with a total backlog of $20 billion.
Is Bloom Energy a millionaire maker?
Bloom is unquestionably well-positioned to become one of the biggest winners of the AI boom. Still, it's not a surefire millionaire maker, and a lot of good news has already been baked into the price. At today's price (about $165), the company trades at over 102 times forward earnings, more than 5 times the average forward-price-to-earnings ratio of the energy sector. It also trades at over 12 times sales, whereas most green energy companies trade at below 4 times.
The company carries a $20 billion market cap. By comparison, NextEra Energy (NEE +0.40%), one of the largest clean energy companies by market value, carries a value of about $192 billion. Even if Bloom Energy were to grow tenfold into $200 billion, you'd have to put down $100,000 today to generate a million. That's a sizable amount for a company that's scarcely profitable.
Bloom Energy has plenty of potential to bloom from here. Just keep your expectations in check and size your position to your risk tolerance. The stock could get volatile, especially if the underlying driver -- AI -- starts to lose steam.
