Cummins
CMI · NYSEEveryone talks about GPUs. Almost nobody talks about the diesel generators that have to work, or the data center doesn't open at all.
Who they are
Cummins has built engines in Columbus, Indiana since 1919, and built its reputation on diesel truck engines for decades. Jennifer Rumsey, a Cummins engineer since the late 1990s, became the company's first female CEO in 2022 and added the Chair title in 2023. Under her tenure, a business few outsiders paid attention to — power generation — has quietly become one of Cummins' fastest-growing segments, outpacing the traditional trucking-linked Engine business that built the company's name.
What they do
Cummins makes the backup and prime-power generator sets, primarily diesel and increasingly natural gas, that data centers rely on to guarantee they never lose power, along with the battery storage and microgrid controls that tie a site's power sources together. In June 2026, Cummins announced a deal with Circe Energy to supply HSK78 and QSK60 natural-gas generator platforms for a behind-the-meter microgrid at an AI/HPC data center campus in West Texas, with deliveries running from 2026 through 2030. At its Power Integration Center in Fridley, Minnesota, Cummins configures and tests complete microgrid systems, combining generators, solar, batteries, and fuel cells, before they ever reach a customer site.
How Cummins makes money
Cummins' Power Systems segment has grown faster than its historically larger Engine segment, driven by data center demand rather than the cyclical trucking industry that built the company's reputation. Order backlog for large-scale power generation sets extends into late 2026 and early 2027, and Cummins has said it is investing more than $1 billion annually in R&D toward lower-emission power solutions, including fuel cells and battery systems alongside its traditional diesel and gas engines.
The bigger trend
Reliability standards, not chip availability, are what actually size a lot of on-site generation demand: a Tier III data center needs at least N+1 generator redundancy and a Tier IV facility needs 2N, meaning a 100-megawatt data center might need to install 120 to 200 megawatts of backup generation just to meet uptime requirements, before a single GPU is powered on. That makes generator lead times a quiet gating factor on how fast some AI campuses can open at all.
Whether Cummins' shift toward natural gas and fuel cells for data centers accelerates as customers push for lower emissions; how the 2026–2030 Circe Energy delivery schedule holds up; whether Cummins lands a mega-scale, multi-gigawatt "prime power" deal comparable to Caterpillar's Monarch Compute Campus contract.
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Frequently asked questions
Diesel truck engines built Cummins' reputation, but its Power Systems segment, which sells generators and microgrid equipment to data centers, has become one of its fastest-growing businesses, increasingly outpacing the traditional Engine segment.
Reliability standards require redundancy: a Tier III facility needs at least N+1 generator capacity and a Tier IV facility needs 2N, meaning a 100-megawatt data center might install 120 to 200 megawatts of backup generators just to meet uptime requirements.
Cummins will supply HSK78 and QSK60 natural-gas generator set platforms for a behind-the-meter microgrid powering an AI/HPC data center campus in West Texas, with deliveries scheduled from 2026 through 2030.
This page describes public value-chain positioning for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice, and inclusion here is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures reflect public reporting as of mid-2026 and may have changed since.