GE Vernova stands alone. Can Boston’s clean-energy scene grow with it?

And while GE Vernova, too, will likely face its share of headwinds amid the stops and starts of an evolving clean-energy sector, the spinoff offers an opportunity at redemption. In three months of trading as an independent business, Vernova’s shares have risen sharply, bringing its market value close to $50 billion. To help bolster the company’s new identity, chief executive Scott Strazik chose a spot near Kendall Square in Cambridge for his corporate headquarters, a place where his executives could be near all the clean-tech startups in the area to foster relationships.

“It’s like a perfect marriage,” said clean-tech entrepreneur Sam White, cofounder of the Greentown Labs climate-tech incubator. “GE knows they need to look outside for innovation, and the startups need GE to be able to scale through GE’s existing supply chains.”

Those words should be music to Strazik’s ears.

When GE chief executive Larry Culp promoted Strazik in 2022 to run what would become GE Vernova, one of Strazik’s first tasks was finding his own headquarters. Strazik, a GE lifer since interning at a Pittsfield factory 25 years ago, wanted to be a relatively short flight from Vernova manufacturing facilities on the East Coast and in Western Europe. He notably did not choose an existing GE campus, but instead selected Cambridge, as Strazik liked the local focus on climate issues and the eager talent pouring out of nearby MIT and other universities in the area.

Even though it’s relatively small — about 200 people are based at this brick-and-beam building, out of a global workforce of 75,000 — Strazik views the location as key to recruitment.

“You have a shot at a happy hour on a Thursday afternoon of bumping into kids who think they can disrupt your business, which is exactly what I want my leadership team to be hanging around,” Strazik said.

That’s similar to what former GE chief executive Jeff Immelt said when he moved the company from suburban Connecticut to Boston eight years ago. We all know how that turned out: Burdened by debt and other issues, the once-mighty General Electric was broken up as various divisions were divested, the stock was kicked off the Dow Jones industrial average, and plans for a corporate campus on the Fort Point Channel were scrapped.

But Strazik envisions a much different fate for GE Vernova.

Strazik doesn’t lead a sprawling conglomerate but rather what he considers a like-minded team that aims to help electrify and decarbonize the world. Vernova consists of three units: power, which generates more than half the company’s nearly $35 billion in revenue by selling and servicing nuclear, hydro, and natural gas turbines, and is its most profitable division; electrification equipment and software, which brings in just under a quarter of the company’s revenue but is its fastest-growing group; and wind, currently in turnaround mode, in part because of setbacks in US offshore wind development.

In capital-intensive industries such as natural gas and wind turbines, Vernova is among just a few big players. (Rivals include the likes of Mitsubishi, Vestas, and Siemens.) Strazik sees more potential competition in the electrification business — as well as more opportunity for growth.

Investors are already betting on Strazik’s vision. Since it spun out as an independent company in early April, GE Vernova shares have risen more than 25 percent, compared with 5 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Wall Street analysts cite two selling points. Vernova doesn’t have any real debt to weigh it down. And it sits at the intersection of two important trends that will drive up electricity consumption, and thus demand for its products: the conversions of buildings, cars, and heavy industry to electricity from fossil fuels, and a surge in the use of artificial intelligence. AI data centers are heavy consumers of electricity; Melius Research notes that the AI boom will drive more power demand than the existing grid can handle. Vernova makes products, from turbines to switchgear, to create and deliver the juice that can feed those machines.

GE Vernova is “kind of a supermarket for electric power,” said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at investment bank Raymond James. “The timing turned out to be very lucky for the spinoff. For the past six to 12 months, the number one investing theme in the entire stock market has been AI.”

As a standalone company, Vernova can be the star of its own show. GE’s more successful aviation division overshadowed the energy businesses, sometimes making it harder for their leaders to secure capital or corporate attention.

“If you’re competing against another arm of the business [for capital] that is the most loved piece, then you feel underappreciated,” said Chris Dendrinos, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Now, “you have this reinvigorated focus that removes that overhang.”

And it’s in Vernova’s focus on electrification that Strazik sees the most opportunity to connect with his new startup neighbors in Greater Boston, where a growing ecosystem is working to make electricity grids more efficient to keep pace with the anticipated rise in demand for power.

“There are many startups that are looking at that as the next software evolution that probably can get there faster with us than on their own,” Strazik said.

In some cases, that could mean acquiring startups, sharing manufacturing capacity at one of Vernova’s plants, or installing a startup’s software on the grid technology Vernova sells to electric utilities. Or it could simply mean giving advice. Strazik wants entrepreneurs to know the doors at 58 Charles St. are open. That’s one reason Vernova has invested in Greentown Labs in Somerville and the Engine Accelerator, a business in Cambridge that supports “Tough Tech” startups including those in green energy.

“Those are the kinds of discussions I’m driving now with that ecosystem,” he said. “ ‘Call us, let’s talk about how we can work together.’ ”

In a broader sense, Vernova can offer energy startups an advantage because of its global footprint and expertise with the different electricity markets across the nation and the world, each with its own rules and specifications.

Some clean-tech entrepreneurs seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, albeit a hopeful one. Sean Becker, a GE alum who now runs Sparkplug Power at Greentown, has one big question: how many project teams and engineers — the kinds of people who interact with startups like his — will be based in Cambridge? “At the moment, I get the sense it’s primarily finance and marketing” employees, he said.

Dan Goldman at Boston VC firm Clean Energy Ventures said he’s been impressed by Vernova’s initial outreach. Its local impact, Goldman said, will extend far beyond the people it employs directly.

“We have to expect a slightly different model, not being a massive employer but I think benefiting the ecosystem in other ways that are substantial in terms of partnerships and collaborations with startups,” Goldman said.

Sam White, the Greentown Labs cofounder, is among the climate-tech leaders who believe Vernova’s arrival represents the start of a promising relationship between this huge public company and the startups that encircle it.

“Even though they’re only 200 executives in the headquarters, they’re the right executives to be looking at new technologies coming from places like Greentown Labs,” White said. “What’s so important is that they have the supply chain and the trusted relationships to be able to really scale these technologies.”

Jon Chesto can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jonchesto.