New York, May 21, 2026, 13:13 (EDT)
- FuelCell Energy shares jumped more than 20% in Thursday trading, extending a sharp rebound from earlier-week losses.
- The company named cybersecurity and industrial-technology veteran John Livingston to its board and set its next results call for June 8.
- Fuel-cell peers also rallied after Bloom Energy’s AI-infrastructure agreement with Nebius kept attention on on-site power demand.
FuelCell Energy shares surged in early afternoon trading Thursday, as investors again chased fuel-cell companies seen as suppliers of power for AI data centers. The Nasdaq-listed stock was last quoted at $24.98, up about 23.5%, after touching $25.27 on volume of roughly 13.1 million shares.
The move matters now because the rally has shifted from a broad clean-energy bid to a narrower bet on power shortages around artificial-intelligence infrastructure. Behind-the-meter power — electricity produced at or near a customer site rather than pulled only from the utility grid — has become a fresh market theme.
FuelCell’s jump followed a 16.47% gain on Wednesday to $20.22, when the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.54%. That move broke a three-day losing streak and came on unusually heavy volume, MarketWatch reported.
The peer tape helped. Bloom Energy rose about 11.1%, Plug Power gained 14.5%, and Nebius Group climbed 16.3%, while the Nasdaq-heavy QQQ fund slipped about 0.5%.
Bloom and Nebius said on May 20 they had agreed to deploy Bloom fuel cells for Nebius’s AI infrastructure build-out, with the first project expected to provide 328 megawatts of installed capacity this year. “Power remains a key constraint,” Nebius executive Andrey Korolenko said. EQS News
FuelCell’s own news was more about governance and timing. The Danbury, Connecticut-based company said John Livingston joined its board effective May 19, and separately said it would report fiscal second-quarter results before the market opens on June 8, followed by a 10 a.m. Eastern call.
A filing showed FuelCell expanded its board to nine directors and appointed Livingston to its Audit, Finance and Risk Committee and its Compensation and Leadership Development Committee. The filing also said there were no reportable related-party transactions involving Livingston.
Chief Executive Jason Few said Livingston’s experience fits as “AI-driven demand and digital infrastructure increasingly converge.” Livingston said FuelCell was “in the right place at the right time” for behind-the-meter power. FuelCell Energy
That is the story traders are buying. In March, FuelCell said it was introducing standardized 12.5-megawatt power blocks for data centers and planned to expand capacity at its Torrington, Connecticut, plant over time from about 100 MW to 350 MW. “What’s changed is urgency,” Few said then; sales chief Eric Strayer said customers want “fast, phased deployment.” FuelCell Energy
Fuel cells generate electricity through an electrochemical process rather than combustion. Baseload power, another term around the trade, means steady supply that can run day and night, a useful pitch for data centers that cannot afford interruptions.
But the rally still has hard math behind it. FuelCell reported first-quarter revenue of $30.5 million, up 61% from a year earlier, but also posted a net loss of $26.1 million and said backlog fell 10.8% to $1.17 billion; the company has warned that bid awards may not become contracts, contracts may not become revenue, and additional financing may be needed.
That puts June 8 in focus. FuelCell’s next update will show whether the AI-power story is moving from proposals and product blocks toward signed revenue, or whether Thursday’s sharp move is mostly the market paying up for a theme.
