CME outage boosts AI cooling themes, a look at 5 major US cooling companies

The American CME ( experienced a failure in its data center cooling equipment, leading to a suspension of trading and quoting in the futures, forex, bonds, and options markets for over 10 hours. This incident not only highlights the energy and cooling issues of data centers in the AI era but also exposes the vulnerability of the global financial markets, which heavily rely on a few infrastructures. As the market re-evaluates the risks of AI infrastructure, suppliers related to data center cooling are also gaining attention, among which 6 publicly traded companies in the US stock market are worth noting.

Why is the data center getting so hot?

Semiconductors, as the core material for chip manufacturing, lie between conductors and insulators, and can control whether current flows by applying voltage. However, as current passes through the material, it encounters impedance and generates heat, and these semiconductor components are the most critical and dense heat sources in servers.

With the explosive demand for AI, companies often stuff more servers into limited space to increase computing density, causing data centers' power consumption to soar, with electricity usage per unit area reaching up to 50 times that of an average office building. The enormous power will ultimately convert into waste heat, and the denser the servers are placed, the harder it becomes to dissipate the heat, leading to a sharp increase in cooling pressure.

In such an environment, the importance of cooling systems is further emphasized. The cooling equipment alone can account for 15% of the construction cost of a data center, making it an indispensable key infrastructure to ensure operational stability.

How to cool down a data center

The cooling methods of data centers are mainly divided into three categories. In the early days, the method of “blowing cold air” was commonly used, which can be referred to as “air cooling”. It uses fans to direct cold air towards the servers and then expels hot air out of the machine room.

With AI bringing more heat dissipation issues, “liquid cooling technology” began to rise in popularity from 2022, including cooling plates that allow coolant to flow behind the chips, or even immersing the entire server in coolant, known as “immersion cooling,” or using low-boiling-point liquids to absorb heat and then recover it. Although liquid cooling is efficient, it is more costly and complex to install, and if leaks occur, it becomes even more difficult to handle.

Regardless of whether air cooling or liquid cooling is used, the final heat will be concentrated in the water circuit system, and then discharged outdoors through cooling towers or chilled water machines. Therefore, data centers are often followed for their water consumption issues, especially in water-scarce areas where it is even more controversial.

From left to right are the cooling concepts of air cooling, liquid cooling, and immersion cooling servers. A look at the five major heat dissipation companies listed on the US stock market.

On November 28, the CME Group in the United States halted trading and froze quotes across the forex, commodities, bonds, and futures markets due to a cooling equipment failure at its data center operator CyrusOne. This incident has led investors to pay closer attention to thermal management-related topics, especially U.S. concept stocks related to cooling technology.

)CME outage causes market trading suspension, has the on-chain exchange won again? (

1. Vertiv Holdings )NYSE: VRT(, one of the leaders in AI data center liquid cooling solutions.

Vertiv primarily provides a complete liquid cooling solution, including rack power distribution, thermal management systems, precision cooling, and monitoring platforms. In recent years, in response to the high demand for AI servers, Vertiv has continued to strengthen the thermal management capabilities of high-performance computing )HPC( and has expanded its liquid cooling layout through strategic acquisitions.

Benefiting from the AI wave, the thermal management concept stock Vertiv has soared over 279% from this year's low to high. 2. nVent Electric )NYSE: NVT(, a fast-growing player in modular liquid cooling and 1GW deployment.

nVent has actively entered the liquid cooling field of data centers in recent years, launching column and rack-level cooling liquid distribution devices )CDU(, and providing modular cooling and power management systems. The company has cumulatively deployed over 1GW of liquid cooling capacity, indicating that its products have been adopted by major cloud and AI customers.

Benefiting from the AI wave, the thermal management concept stock nVent has accumulated a rise of over 180% from this year's low to high. 3. Eaton Corporation )NYSE: ETN( is entering the high-end liquid cooling market through acquisitions.

Eaton was known for its power management equipment in the past, and recently it has entered the data center cooling technology market through acquisitions. The company acquired thermal management and material technology company Boyd Thermal for $9.5 billion, officially integrating liquid cooling and thermal management capabilities into its power and energy infrastructure product line.

This acquisition allows Eaton to span from the chip level all the way to the power grid, creating a complete end-to-end data center solution, particularly addressing the high thermal load requirements of AI servers.

Benefiting from the AI wave, the thermal management concept stock Eaton has accumulated a rise of over 72% from this year's low to high. Modine Manufacturing )NYSE: MOD(, a dark horse in high-density computing thermal management.

Modine has rapidly emerged in the data center thermal management field, recently securing a $180 million data center cooling order, demonstrating strong demand momentum. Its product portfolio includes:

Precision air conditioning.

Liquid cooling technology.

High-performance computing dedicated cooling solutions.

Modine stated that the growth in demand for digitalization, AI training, and cloud infrastructure will continue to drive strong growth in the data center business. It is seen by many analysts as a “dark horse in liquid cooling and data center thermal management,” with the opportunity to continue expanding its market share in the coming years.

Benefiting from the AI wave, the heat dissipation concept stock Modine has accumulated a rise of over 158% from this year's low to high. 5. Schneider Electric )OTC: SBGSY(, a global leader in energy and data center thermal management.

The French cooling company Schneider Electric is listed in the United States through ADR and is one of the largest suppliers of energy and thermal management equipment for data centers worldwide. The company offers a complete product line, including air cooling, liquid cooling, data center infrastructure management, and high-performance thermal management modules.

Schneider's market value has reached 132.6 billion USD, holding a leading position in energy-saving and high-density applications in data centers. In response to the high thermal load brought by AI servers, the company has launched several next-generation liquid cooling solutions, becoming one of the key drivers for the global data center's shift towards liquid cooling.

Benefiting from the AI wave, Schneider's ADR price in the U.S. has accumulated an increase of over 51% from this year's low to high.

This article discusses how the CME outage has boosted the AI cooling theme, featuring 5 major US cooling companies all at once. It first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.