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Chapter 10 / 16

Power, Cooling, and Infrastructure

Break power into transformers, switchgear, turbines, interconnection, busways, liquid cooling, and delivery timelines.

1. Onsite / Behind-the-Meter Power

Hypothesis: Data centers will increasingly bring their own generation because utility interconnection timelines are too slow.

Companies to track:

  • Bloom Energy: onsite fuel cells for data centers.
  • Vistra: power generation, especially where large-load customers need firm power.
  • Constellation Energy: nuclear and clean firm power exposure.
  • GE Vernova: turbines, grid equipment, electrification.
  • Solaris Energy Infrastructure: distributed power and electrical infrastructure for hyperscale sites.
  • Crusoe: energy-linked AI infrastructure and compute.
  • Lancium: power-aware data center development.
  • CoreWeave: not a power supplier, but useful as a demand-side signal for power procurement behavior.

Automation signals:

  • New power purchase agreements with hyperscalers.
  • Data center deals measured in MW or GW.
  • Language like "behind-the-meter", "onsite generation", "time-to-power", "grid interconnection", "firm power".
  • FERC, ERCOT, PJM, MISO, CAISO, SPP filings involving large-load interconnection.

2. Electrical Equipment: Transformers, Switchgear, PDUs, Busways

Hypothesis: AI data centers may be bottlenecked less by GPUs than by boring electrical components with multi-year manufacturing lead times.

Companies to track:

  • Eaton: power distribution, switchgear, UPS, electrical systems.
  • Schneider Electric: data center power, cooling, electrical management.
  • Vertiv: power and cooling infrastructure for high-density AI data centers.
  • Siemens Energy / Siemens: grid and electrification equipment.
  • Powell Industries: electrical equipment for industrial and utility-scale projects.
  • Hammond Power Solutions: transformers.
  • nVent Electric: electrical connection and protection systems.
  • Atkore: electrical raceway and infrastructure.

Automation signals:

  • Backlog growth, book-to-bill, lead-time commentary.
  • Mentions of transformer shortages, switchgear shortages, busways, PDUs, UPS, medium-voltage gear.
  • Capacity expansions in North America.
  • Hyperscaler preferred-vendor announcements.

3. High-Density Cooling and Water-Constrained Infrastructure

Hypothesis: Rack density and liquid cooling adoption create new winners in thermal management, especially where water, permitting, or reliability constraints matter.

Companies to track:

  • Vertiv: liquid cooling and thermal management.
  • Schneider Electric: data center thermal and power systems.
  • Modine: thermal management.
  • Watts Water Technologies: flow control and water infrastructure.
  • Johnson Controls: building systems, chillers, controls.
  • Carrier: cooling systems.
  • CoolIT Systems: liquid cooling.
  • Submer: immersion and liquid cooling.

Automation signals:

  • "liquid cooling", "direct-to-chip", "immersion cooling", "high-density rack", "water positive", "heat reuse".
  • Partnerships with Nvidia, hyperscalers, colocation providers, and AI cloud providers.
  • Cooling capacity constraints in new data center markets.

4. Flexible Load / Grid-Interactive Data Centers

Hypothesis: The next unlock may be data centers that can modulate load, arbitrage power, and coordinate with grid operators.

Companies to track:

  • Emerald AI: flexible AI data center load coordination.
  • Nvidia: reference architecture and ecosystem influence.
  • AES: utility and renewable power partner.
  • NextEra Energy: power generation and large-load partnerships.
  • Invenergy: power development.
  • Constellation Energy: firm power and grid partnerships.
  • AutoGrid / Schneider Electric: demand response and grid software.

Automation signals:

  • "flexible load", "demand response", "curtailment", "grid-interactive", "load shifting".
  • Utility pilots with AI data centers.
  • Regulatory language allowing fast interconnection for flexible or self-powered data centers.