nVent
NVT · NYSEEvery AI rack running hot enough to need liquid cooling still needs something to safely plug it in first — that's the gap nVent fills.
Who they are
nVent has only existed as an independent company since 2018, when Pentair spun off its electrical, thermal, and enclosures businesses into a standalone, NYSE-listed company. It's technically headquartered in London, a holdover from the Pentair corporate structure, but is run day to day out of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, under Chair and CEO Beth Wozniak, who has led nVent since the day of the spinoff.
What they do
nVent makes the hardware that sits closest to the chip inside a data center rack: coolant distribution units (CDUs) that pump fluid directly to servers, rack manifolds, liquid-to-air heat rejection units, rear-door heat exchangers, and the power distribution units that feed a rack safely. In November 2025 the company launched a new generation of row-based and rack-based CDUs built around a single shared control platform, and in June 2026 Siemens published a reference architecture for Nvidia's DSX Vera Rubin NVL72 systems that incorporated nVent-aligned cooling designs.
How nVent makes money
nVent's first-quarter 2026 sales rose 53% year over year, with its Systems Protection segment, which houses much of the data center cooling business, up 76%. Its order backlog roughly tripled to $2.3 billion during 2025 on the strength of data center demand, and the company says it has deployed more than 2 gigawatts of liquid cooling capacity globally to date.
The bigger trend
The market nVent is built around, data center liquid cooling, was valued at roughly $4.8 billion in 2025, is expected to reach about $6 billion in 2026, and is forecast to hit $27.1 billion by 2035, an 18.2% compound annual growth rate driven by AI racks routinely exceeding 60 kilowatts of density, well past what air cooling can safely handle. nVent's edge is that it has spent more than a decade building this specific capability and the hyperscaler relationships behind it, ahead of much larger rivals now buying their way into the category through acquisitions rather than building it organically.
Whether Eaton's Boyd Thermal and Schneider Electric's Motivair acquisitions erode nVent's head start now that two far larger power-equipment companies have bought their way into liquid cooling; and whether the tripled 2025 backlog converts into 2026–2027 revenue at the pace management has signaled.
Related companies
Frequently asked questions
They were the same company until 2018, when Pentair split in two: Pentair kept its water technology business, and the electrical, thermal, and enclosures businesses became the independently traded nVent Electric.
A coolant distribution unit (CDU) pumps cooling fluid at a controlled temperature directly to chips or servers, effectively acting as the heart of a liquid cooling loop. As AI racks generate more heat than air cooling can remove, CDUs have become one of the most in-demand components in a data center build.
nVent's backlog roughly tripled during 2025, driven by data center customers shifting from air cooling to liquid cooling as AI accelerator racks pushed past densities that traditional air-cooling systems can safely manage.
This page describes public value-chain positioning for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice, and inclusion here is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures reflect public reporting as of mid-2026 and may have changed since.