Frank Curzio
Founder & CEO of Curzio Research, Wall Street Unplugged Host
AI data centers need cooling, electricity and transmission, sustaining the case for Vertiv, GE Vernova and Quanta Services. Vertiv's sales rose 26% in the past year; its systems cool AI chips. GE Vernova is the go-to power trade for its gas turbines. Quanta builds the lines to data centers and has a record $53B backlog. x.com x.com x.comÂ
Companies that already own power and grid connections are the way to play the AI data-center buildout, since there isn't nearly enough electricity for it. UBS flagged TeraWulf, with a roughly $19B Anthropic lease; Hut 8, probably the safest play, with $26.6B of contracts; Applied Digital; Core Scientific, with AMD's 2.5 GW deal; and Cipher Digital, with 493 MW signed. Digi Power X has a $1.2B Cerebras deal, and VivoPower is finalizing a lease for its hydro-powered Norway data center. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Vertiv's power and cooling gear is benefiting from the AI data-center build-out. Q3 net sales rose 61%, operating profit 90% and net income 92%. There is no more direct picks-and-shovels bet on AI infrastructure than Vertiv. Grade: A. x.comÂ
GE Vernova's turbines and grid equipment make it a clear winner from the AI data-center power crunch. Q3 equipment sales rose 42%, total revenue 27% and operating income 281% as margins expanded. Grade: A. x.comÂ
Financing strain threatens smaller AI-related plays. Elon Musk says debt markets have nearly closed to firms without substantial non-AI-data-center revenue. Neoclouds, energy, HVAC, electronics and builders will be a much smaller field in a year; its 'guppy' plays can be shorted here toward zero. CoreWeave, IREN and Vertiv look troubled, perhaps Nebius; Ouster, Applied Digital, Ultra Clean, Cipher Digital, WhiteFiber, TeraWulf and IPG Photonics too. x.com x.comÂ
Vertiv's surging orders and Q3 growth show AI infrastructure demand exceeding expectations. Per WallStEngine, revenue rose 61% to $4.3B, adjusted EPS rose 78% to $2.21, organic orders grew more than 100%, and FY26 guidance was raised above estimates. Vertiv is delivering into accelerating demand for its power and cooling equipment. x.com x.comÂ
AI data-center spending should reach chips first, then racks, power and cooling, benefiting Nvidia, AMD, Vertiv, Bloom Energy, Credo, Marvell, Lumentum and Micron. BofA forecasts the global data-center market at about $1T in 2026, $2.1T in 2028 and nearly $3T by 2030, a 37% annual rise; roughly 80% of a new AI site's $57M per MW cost goes to servers, networking and storage. x.comÂ
AI infrastructure names such as Vertiv, Bloom Energy and Sterling are an attractive, asymmetric short because slowing data-center builds should slow their order growth. Semis are historically overbought, a $200 billion company jumped 40% on its CEO calling it undervalued, companies may start rationalizing AI spend, Anthropic's revenue acceleration could slow, and a $1.5 trillion space IPO looms. Any waning momentum could cause severe unraveling. This is a high-conviction playbook into September. … Show more
On-site power management would help Vertiv tackle a major AI data-center bottleneck. Its planned acquisition of UtilityInnovation Group would add that expertise alongside its power and cooling equipment. x.comÂ
AI data-center spending flows beyond GPUs and operators into networking, optics, power and cooling. Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom and Marvell supply chips; Arista, Nokia and Credo connectivity; Applied Optoelectronics and Lumentum optics; Vistra, Constellation and Bloom power; Vertiv and Modine cooling. Meta's $140B spending this year illustrates the scale, per a commenter with whom the point is agreed. x.com x.comÂ
Vertiv is a great company, supplying the power and cooling AI data centers need as rack densities climb past 100kW, with its cooling systems a major draw. Its liquid-cooling, power, heat-rejection and prefabricated modular systems bring more of the data-center stack under one roof, which could become a meaningful competitive advantage. Grid power and thermal capacity, not silicon supply, are now the limiting factor in AI. x.com x.comÂ
NVIDIA's liquid-cooling work with Vertiv can deliver more compute from a fixed power budget. Liquid cooling yields roughly 22% more compute and more tokens from the same power on average, a benefit modeled in an April report. NVIDIA's scale, balance sheet and command of its supply chain make it the economic winner of the AI compute cycle, with Broadcom a close-ish second. x.com x.comÂ
