Data Center Cooling Demand Will Outlast AI Bubble, Ecolab Says

The company behind a $4.75 billion data-center cooling deal said demand for its services will keep growing even if the buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure slows down.

Ecolab Inc., which agreed last week to buy CoolIT Systems Inc. from funds managed by KKR & Co., expects revenue in its data center business to keep growing at least 20% a year “for the foreseeable future,” said Josh Magnuson, the company’s general manager for global water solutions. That’s because demand for computing power keeps going up and older facilities will need to be overhauled to meet the needs of newer chip models, he said.