AI’s growing reliance on fast-deploy “bridging power” systems creates significant wasted pressure across LNG, hydrogen, and natural-gas infrastructure, and Sapphire’s FreeSpin® In-line Turboexpander unlocks that overlooked energy to deliver cleaner, more efficient behind-the-meter power for data center operators.
AI’s electricity demand is rising faster than utilities can expand the grid, and data center developers are responding the only way they can: by specifying whatever power source they can bring online quickly. In practice, that has created a new class of “bridging power” systems: temporary or fast-deploy assets that keep projects on schedule while long-term generation and transmission catch up.
Some of these solutions are permanent, some are transitional, and many sit somewhere in between. What they share is a common structure: they rely on on-site fuel storage, pressure management, and thermal processes that are not being designed with energy recovery in mind. As a result, they contain meaningful amounts of wasted pressure that can be converted into electricity to create more efficient data centers. This is the gap Sapphire Technologies is focused on closing.
Bridging power systems are expanding across the sector in several forms. On-site LNG is becoming a practical backup solution for new AI campuses because it avoids multi-year interconnection delays. Hydrogen storage is moving from concept to evaluation at several hyperscale facilities. Even conventional natural gas service lines, once a minor facility detail, are being upgraded to support higher-capacity backup generation and thermal systems. All of these assets include pressure letdown points. Those pressure drops represent lost energy that a turboexpander can capture and spin into clean electricity.
The FreeSpin® In-line Turboexpander (FIT) converts pressure into electricity with no fuel consumption and without disrupting the underlying process. It sits in line with existing infrastructure like LNG regasification units, hydrogen distribution systems, and natural gas service lines to generate behind-the-meter power that offsets part of the load created by bridging power assets. For an industry focused on power usage effective, where incremental megawatts matter, this is energy that data center operators should not be leaving on the table.
The FIT is not a replacement for bridging power; it is a way to make bridging power sources more efficient, economical, and sustainable. If operators are already deploying on-site LNG or hydrogen storage, or upgrading gas distribution systems to support temporary generation, they should also be capturing the pressure inside those systems. The process does not require new fuel contracts or new permitting pathways. It simply recovers energy that is already there.
Bridging power will continue to support AI infrastructure, yet its performance does not have to be static. Recovering the pressure already embedded in these systems offers a practical path to generating additional, zero-carbon electricity.
