ABB acquires Rotork for $5.5B to dominate data center automation
ABB has announced a $5.5 billion acquisition of Rotork to bolster its automation portfolio for mission-critical infrastructure, including data centers. This move, alongside infrastructure investments from companies like Vertiv and AWS, highlights the growing emphasis on managing power and cooling scalability in large-scale data environments.
Key Takeaways
- ABB's $5.5 billion cash offer represents a 60% premium over Rotork’s three-month average share price.
- The acquisition is expected to add 3% to ABB’s total revenues and 12% to its Automation business area.
- Rotork recorded 2025 revenues of $1 billion with an adjusted operating profit margin of 24.6%.
- Funding will be supported by $4.8 billion in net proceeds from ABB's robotics business sale to SoftBank.
- Vertiv is concurrently doubling chiller production in Italy to meet high-density AI cooling demand.
Why It Matters
This acquisition positions ABB to capture the "act" portion of the sense-control-act automation loop, specifically targeting the orchestration of mission-critical data center infrastructure. By acquiring Rotork’s liquid and gas flow control technology, ABB gains a significant edge in managing the liquid cooling architectures required for next-generation AI chips. Within the broader ecosystem, this move signals a vertical consolidation trend where electrical giants are absorbing specialist hardware to provide full-stack infrastructure management. Watch for ABB’s integration of Rotork’s digital diagnostics into its existing 800-volt DC data center platform to improve energy efficiency for hyperscale operators.
Additional Context
The acquisition of Rotork aligns with a broader trend of industrial giants repositioning for the AI-driven infrastructure cycle. Per Bloomberg (July 2026), ABB’s data center revenue is projected to more than triple to $11.4 billion by 2030, narrowing the gap with market leaders Schneider Electric and Vertiv. ABB CEO Morten Wierod has noted that the company maintains a $13 billion war chest for further M&A, specifically targeting the electrification and automation layers of the data center stack.
Concurrent investments across the sector underscore the scale of this push. Vertiv announced in July 2026 that it will double chiller production at its Tognana campus in Italy by the end of 2026 to address the thermal demands of generative AI. Simultaneously, OpenAI has transitioned to a direct developer role with 'Project Camellia,' a $20 billion, 3.2-gigawatt campus in Georgia. Per ConstructConnect (July 2026), this project marks the first time OpenAI has shifted from leasing to building its own specialized facilities at scale, featuring a closed-loop water system to minimize environmental impact.
Technological focus has shifted toward high-value power architectures. Per ABB (July 2026), the company is investing $200 million in medium-voltage manufacturing across Europe to support next-generation distribution. This hardware evolution is paired with new software-driven sustainability efforts; per Data Centre Magazine (July 2026), AWS has launched the industry’s first cloud console for tracking real-time water withdrawal, reflecting the intense regulatory and operational scrutiny on resource consumption as AI compute density increases.
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