I have written about Bloom Energy (BE) several times recently as the Bull of the Day. And it seems like every other week gives me a new to reason to update this incredible growth story with bullish deal news and a fresh angle on a 21st century American company that evolved from fringe obscurity and Wall Street disbelief to a profitable large cap provider of clean, mobile, on-demand energy for datacenters.
Cutting to the chase, the two big news items for Bloom in the past week were (1) inclusion into the Russell 1000 large cap index (a metrics-based index unlike the S&P 500’s “committee” selection) and (2) an expansion of their AI infrastructure partnership with Brookfield (BN) to $25 billion — a fivefold increase since their initial strategic alliance in October!
From the June 30 press release…
“The expanded partnership reflects strong and sustained demand from hyperscalers and AI infrastructure developers for fast, reliable, and community-friendly power. It brings together Brookfield’s global leadership in AI infrastructure development, access to capital, and operating scale with Bloom’s rapidly deployable onsite power platform. Together, the companies continue to advance a new model for AI factories that integrates power, compute, data center infrastructure, and capital from the outset.”
And this statement from Sikander Rashid, Head of AI Infrastructure at Brookfield, sums up the vision and strategy of the $1 trillion asset manager as they seek to become an integral part of the AI buildout, behind the scenes of the “hyperscaler” headlines…
“Scaling our commitment with Bloom Energy reflects both the strength of this partnership and the conviction behind our broader AI infrastructure strategy, including integrated compute. Scaling this partnership further strengthens Brookfield’s position as one of the leading global AI infrastructure investors, capable of delivering end-to-end solutions, from electrons to tokens, for some of the world’s most sophisticated customers.”
Regarding the Russell rebalance that occurred last weekend, it created a great opportunity to buy more BE shares as the stock had just made new highs on Thursday June 25 above $350 and then reversed hard into Friday as Russell 2000 small-cap managers and benchmarkers had to sell their shares.
Investors who jumped on prices below $275 will be well-rewarded, just as my TAZR Trader group has been buying on every dip under $250. Indeed, on Thursday July 1, Evercore ISI raised their price target on BE to a new Street-high of $350 and I think that will be eclipsed again before the year is done.
Evercore analyst Nicholas Amicucci said that Bloom’s ability to provide reliable, dispatchable power to a “volatile demand profile” differentiates it from competitors.
From Electrons to Tokens
Bloom Energy empowers enterprises to meet soaring energy demands and responsibly take charge of their power needs. The company’s solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems provide ultra-reliable, clean, and highly scalable onsite electricity using natural gas and hydrogen for combustion-free fuel.
Bloom has Fortune 500 customers around the world, including data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, large utilities, and other commercial and industrial sectors as well as mission-critical organizations in local communities, such as hospitals, college campuses and retailers. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Bloom Energy employs more than 2,000 people worldwide and manufactures its systems in the United States.
The gap that Bloom fills right now sits between surging demand for fast, on-site, “behind the meter” (off-grid) power and how long it takes to get permits and hardware for either gas turbines from GE Vernova (GEV) or power connections to local grids. Bloom’s SOFCs can be installed in less than 90 days.
Semiconductor engineer, analyst, and investor Ben Pouladian (@benitoz on X), who often gets access to key NVIDIA (NVDA) technology leaders, posted this on X June 30…
“Brookfield just took its Bloom Energy commitment from $5B to $25B in eight months. Fivefold.
Read the quote, not the headline
Brookfield’s head of AI infra: “end to end solutions, from electrons to tokens”
That is the Electrons To Tokens trade. A trillion dollar allocator bought the front of the Token Dollar loop, the behind the meter watt. The fifth straight deal into the same name in eight months
Same loop. Now with a buyer naming it.”
What he means by “fifth straight deal” is that Bloom has also been inking key partnerships with other energy infrastructure players like AEP. In January, American Electric Power (AEP) announced a $2.65B SOFC deal with Bloom.
You can read more about that AEP deal, plus notes from Bloom’s 2026 Data Center Power Report, in this June 16 Bull of the Day article where I describe that “Bloom’s story is a microcosm of how the AI-bearish economists & analysts have missed the fundamental demand drivers.”
And here’s my recent video on Bloom where I identified key “buy zones” for BE in May and June.
Rocket Scientist Takes On the Skeptics
To truly appreciate where Bloom sits today, you have to look back at the roots of KR Sridhar’s vision — which actually started on another planet.
Before he was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, KR Sridhar was a literal rocket scientist. He grew up in India, experiencing the frequent, unpredictable power grid failures common to the region at the time. After moving to the U.S. and earning his PhD in mechanical engineering, he became the director of the Space Technologies Laboratory at the University of Arizona.
In the 1990s, Sridhar led a project for NASA to build an oxygen-generating machine for a future manned mission to Mars. His device used a solid oxide ceramic technology: it took in the carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere, pumped in electricity, and split the molecules to generate breathable oxygen.
But in 1999, the Mars Polar Lander crashed. NASA subsequently canceled the mission, and Sridhar’s project was effectively mothballed.
Instead of letting the technology die, Sridhar had an epiphany: He realized he could run the entire process in reverse. If you take that exact same solid oxide ceramic material, feed oxygen into one side and a fuel source (like natural gas or hydrogen) into the other, it creates a chemical reaction that produces electricity — without combustion, without smoke, and entirely off the traditional transmission grid.
In 2001, he co-founded Ion America (later renamed Bloom Energy).
The Era of Total Secrecy & Skepticism
For nearly a decade, Bloom Energy operated in absolute stealth mode. Sridhar’s headquarters had no sign on the building, a completely cryptic website, and zero public progress reports.
The skepticism from the energy sector and Wall Street during this era was immense. Fuel cells had long been considered the “Holy Grail” of clean tech, but they were notoriously plagued by three massive roadblocks:
>>Cost: Traditional fuel cells required precious metals like platinum.>>Durability: Early iterations degraded rapidly, sometimes lasting less than two years.>>Scale: They simply couldn’t generate enough continuous, reliable baseline power to justify their massive price tags.
Most experts assumed Bloom was just another Silicon Valley “fake-it-till-you-make-it” hype machine backed by venture capital.
The Infamous 2010 60 Minutes Unveiling
The curtain finally lifted in February 2010, when Sridhar invited 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl into his lab for the first-ever public look at the “Bloom Box.”
The segment became an instant piece of Silicon Valley lore. Sridhar demystified the “secret sauce,” showing Stahl how he baked everyday sand into thin ceramic squares and painted them with green and black proprietary inks. Instead of platinum, Sridhar utilized a cheap metal alloy to separate the disks.
During the broadcast, Sridhar and his legendary venture capital backer, John Doerr, laid out an incredibly ambitious, and highly criticized, vision:
“The Bloom box is intended to replace the grid… for its customers. It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid.”
~John Doerr to Lesley Stahl, 2010
Sridhar confidently predicted that within five years, a small, $3,000 version of the box would sit in every American backyard, powering homes completely wirelessly.
The Backlash
The 60 Minutes episode was treated as a massive teaser just ahead of their official corporate launch, but it also painted a target on Bloom’s back. Critics noted that early large-scale units cost upwards of $700,000 to $800,000 each. The dream of a cheap consumer backyard box never materialized.
For years after that interview, Wall Street disbelief grew. Detractors pointed out the heavy reliance on state and federal clean-energy subsidies, brief product lifespans, and billions of dollars in cumulative corporate losses as proof that the technology “would never work” profitably at scale.
The Data Center Redemption Arc
What critics in 2010 didn’t fully anticipate was how the nature of electricity demand would evolve. Bloom’s initial residential dream faded, but Sridhar pivoted aggressively toward enterprise, industrial, and mission-critical commercial buyers who cared less about cheap backyard novelties and more about uninterrupted baseline power.
Early testers mentioned in that 60 Minutes piece — like Google, eBay, and FedEx — were looking for alternative, efficient footprints. eBay’s CEO noted at the time that just five Bloom Boxes on their campus produced five times as much usable, consistent 24/7 electricity as their entire footprint of over 3,200 rooftop solar panels.
Fast forward to today, and that 24/7, high-efficiency footprint is exactly why Bloom has transitioned from a speculative clean-tech longshot into a large-cap player. With the explosion of AI datacenters drawing immense amounts of power from already strained regional grids, Sridhar’s long-fought, multi-decade struggle to perfect solid oxide fuel cells has found its ultimate product-market fit.
Reminds me of another rocket scientist named Elon who the experts laughed at.
Kevin Cook is a Senior Stock Strategist for Zacks Investment Research where he runs the TAZR Trader portfolio and has been investing in Bloom Energy (BE) since $70. TAZR also owns other key AI infrastructure players like NVDA, TSM, MU, LITE, and OUST.
Beyond Nvidia: AI’s Second Wave Is Here
The AI revolution has already minted millionaires. But the stocks everyone knows about aren’t likely to keep delivering the biggest profits. AI’s second wave is moving from infrastructure to implementation and these companies are at the forefront of this transition, positioned to become what Amazon and Google were to the internet era.
See Stocks Now >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Bloom Energy Corporation (BE) : Free Stock Analysis Report
American Electric Power Company, Inc. (AEP) : Free Stock Analysis Report
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Brookfield Corporation (BN) : Free Stock Analysis Report
GE Vernova Inc. (GEV) : Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
Zacks Investment Research
