Deepwater Frontier Tech Spotlight: Vertiv
- Ticker: VRT
- Market Cap: $30B
Vertiv is a global provider of power and thermal management solutions essential to the operation of data centers that are powering AI. As AI-driven workloads lead to exponential growth in compute demand, Vertiv enables the infrastructure behind this transformation—delivering precision-engineered solutions that power, cool, and maintain mission-critical systems.
While most investors are familiar with Nvidia’s hyper-growth business, Vertiv benefits from the same undeniable truth: advancing AI will require a massive, multi-year infrastructure buildout. Vertiv stands out with range of products, including power, cooling, and services, that are implemented through their global service network of 4,000 technicians. As complexity rises, Vertiv offers an integrated, scalable solution where most competitors are more niche or regionally focused. Vertiv tends to win the most complex, high-density data center projects, making them an appealing vendor for AI data centers.
Vertiv’s business is organized across three key segments:
- Thermal Management (~35% of revenue): Including high-efficiency cooling systems and a rapidly growing liquid cooling business, critical for new-generation GPUs.
- Power Management (~35%): Manages AC/DC power systems and ensures uptime for high-density compute environments.
- Services (~30%): Provides implementation and maintenance support for Vertiv’s infrastructure solutions.
Vertiv is riding a wave of secular growth as the AI revolution fuels a surge in data center construction. Revenue growth rates are expected to go from 17% in 2024 to 15% by 2026 (~$11B in 2026), driven by continued infrastructure buildout. Deepwater believes growth will exceed current Street expectations. The company’s thermal management segment is accelerating with the emergence of liquid cooling, and its power management segment continues to grow as the power demands for next-generation GPUs increases. As an example, current Blackwell racks today consume 120 kW of power per rack. Nvidia’s roadmap has Vera Rubin Ultra coming in the 2nd half of 2027 which will require 600 kW per rack alongside liquid cooling. We continue to believe that the AI trade and Capex buildout will remain strong over the coming years.
AI advancement follows three different types of scaling laws: pre-training, post-training, and test-time scaling. That computation runs on GPUs, primarily from Nvidia, which are increasing in power draw. This power surge creates massive demand for Vertiv’s infrastructure. The AI-driven data center buildout is projected to increase 2–4x by 2030—most of it AI-specific. Vertiv is one of the few companies positioned to scale with this demand, solving thermal and power density challenges that hyperscalers face. Many of Vertiv’s competitors operate as large conglomerates, so the AI tailwind only impacts a small part of their business. On the other hand, over half of Vertiv’s revenue comes from the hyperscalers and co-locators.
As a reminder, the Deepwater Frontier Tech Index tracks the performance of companies that influence the future of technology, using the following thematic weights:
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