An 80-Year-Old AC Company Is Now Worth Over $100 Billion Because of AI

Nobody builds an AI portfolio around an air conditioning company. Most investors overlooked exactly that opportunity with Vertiv Holdings.

Vertiv, an 80-year-old maker of critical digital infrastructure, has seen its market cap grow from under $11 billion to somewhere between $100 billion and $113 billion since its public debut, according to Crypto Briefing and KuCoin. Its annualized return since then, 50.5%, ranks third in the entire S&P 500. Only Comfort Systems at 55.2% and Nvidia at 54.9% have done better, per the same reporting.

The company went public on February 10, 2020, through a SPAC merger with GS Acquisition Holdings valued at roughly $5.3 billion, both Crypto Briefing and KuCoin report. Fortune, however, states Vertiv "went public in early 2021," a discrepancy from the February 2020 date cited elsewhere. The earlier date lines up with SEC filings from the period and appears to be the accurate one.

The Guy Who Did It

David Cote, a retired industrialist who ran Honeywell as CEO from 2002 to 2017, architected Vertiv's transformation. Fortune reports that Cote, looking for a post-retirement project in 2019, struck an arrangement with Goldman Sachs: the bank would surface acquisition candidates, and it would help raise financing once Cote found one worth pursuing.

"I had weekly phone calls with the Goldman group, and we looked at over 1,000 companies, and it was Goldman that found them," Cote told Fortune. Vertiv was the one that fit his criteria from his Honeywell days: a dominant or potentially dominant position in a fast-growing industry, room to expand margins, and a shot at owning a sector-defining technology.

Cote has been blunt about his reasoning. "It was not like I was an AI savant, but I knew that if I positioned myself in the middle of the data industry there was a good chance something good would happen," he told Fortune. He has also repeatedly argued there is no viable substitute for physical data centers when it comes to large-scale computing, according to Crypto Briefing and KuCoin.

Why Cooling Became the Business to Be In

Vertiv holds roughly 23.5% of the global data center thermal management market, according to research firm Omdia, cited by both Crypto Briefing and KuCoin. As hyperscalers pack more Nvidia GPUs into denser racks, traditional air conditioning stops working. Vertiv has leaned into direct-to-chip liquid cooling built for racks pulling 50 kilowatts or more, a load traditional air-cooled setups cannot handle.

The numbers back up the demand story. 24/7 Wall St. reported that Vertiv posted second-quarter revenue of $3.27 billion, up 24.1% year over year, with adjusted operating margin expanding 410 basis points to 22.6%. Free cash flow more than tripled to $925.3 million. CEO Giordano Albertazzi credited what he called the compounding effect of years of deliberate investment in technology, capacity, and customer partnerships.

Vertiv raised its full-year guidance to between $13.80 billion and $14.20 billion in net sales, with organic growth projected at 30% to 32%, according to 24/7 Wall St. The stock rallied 24.61% in the week following that earnings report. Not every region is firing, though. EMEA sales were down 2.4% organically, a soft spot 24/7 Wall St. flagged as worth watching heading into the next quarter.

Not the Only Winner, and Not Without Risk

24/7 Wall St. compared Vertiv's results to Astera Labs, a much smaller connectivity chip maker that also beat earnings expectations but saw its stock fall 11.96% the next day. The outlet described that as a classic "priced in" response given Astera's valuation near a 249 P/E ratio. Wall Street is not rewarding every AI supplier equally. Vertiv's steady, cash-generating growth is getting a different multiple than Astera's hypergrowth, higher-risk profile.

Comfort Systems, the only S&P 500 stock outperforming Vertiv on an annualized basis, operates in a similar niche: HVAC and mechanical contracting, much of it now tied to data centers. Two companies in roughly the same business landing in the top three performers of the entire S&P 500 says something concrete about where AI capital has actually been flowing, beyond the chip headlines.

24/7 Wall St. also noted that insiders across Vertiv's C-suite bought shares on June 25, 2026, though the outlet flagged those purchases as likely compensation-linked rather than a bullish signal. Investors watching the stock, currently trading in the $260 to $270 range according to Crypto Briefing and KuCoin, will get their next real test when Vertiv reports third-quarter results and updates guidance, with organic growth targets sitting at 34% to 36% and EMEA stabilization still an open question.