[7] In July 1996, Rolls-Royce offered the Trent 900 for the proposed Boeing 747-500/600X, targeting a 2000 service entry and competing with the General Electric/Pratt & Whitney Engine Alliance.

With a scaled-down Trent 800 core and a similar 2.8 m (110 in) fan, increasing bypass ratio from 6.5 to 8.5, the 345–365 kN (78,000–82,000 lbf) engine could also power the Airbus A3XX.

After a twelve-month suspension caused by delays to the A380, Rolls-Royce announced in October 2007 that production of the Trent 900 had been restarted.

Rolls-Royce told Aviation Week and Space Technology that the upgrades were intended in most cases for both new engines and as retrofits.

[15] Changes include better sealing of the low-pressure turbine, improvements to fan blade tip clearances, and other changes derived from the engines developed for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350.

On 4 November 2010, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A380, suffered an uncontained failure in one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines.

No injuries occurred to the passengers, crew, or people on the ground, despite debris from the aircraft falling onto houses in Batam.

[18] On inspection, a turbine disc in the aircraft's number-two engine (on the port side nearer the fuselage) was found to have disintegrated, causing extensive damage to the nacelle, wing, fuel system, landing gear, flight controls, and engine controls, and a fire in a fuel tank that self-extinguished.

The subsequent investigation concluded that the failure had been caused by the breaking of a stub oil pipe, which had been manufactured improperly.

[21] In 2015 Emirates Airlines signed a contract for 200 Trent 900s including long-term service support at a cost of US$9.2 billion or US$46 million per engine.