Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 30, 2025
By John Revill
ZURICH (Reuters) - ABB expects increased demand from the data centre market for its electrification products, CEO Morten Wierod said on Thursday, despite the promise of lower-energy AI models from China's DeepSeek.
DeepSeek, a low-cost alternative to U.S. rivals, sparked a tech stock selloff on Monday as its free AI assistant overtook OpenAI's ChatGPT on Apple's App Store in the United States.
The news prompted investors to dump tech stocks on worries DeepSeek's model - which uses far fewer chips at data centres used to power AI - could threaten the dominance of advanced chipmakers like Nvidia.
Suppliers to data centres also lost ground, with ABB's stock shedding nearly 6% on Monday.
Wierod said DeepSeek's popularity had "raised eyebrows and created a lot of uncertainty in the market.
"We have talked with our large partners and customers to see how this would impact their capex plans," he told reporters after ABB reported fourth-quarter results.
"And the answer we receive ... is that it does not really affect the plans that are already in place."
ABB has been a beneficiary of the increase in data centres, a market which Fortune Business Insights forecast to grow by nearly 12% per year to reach $685 billion by 2032.
ABB's data centre-related orders increased 23% per year on average in 2019-2023, and even faster in 2024 to make up 15% of its electrification business, from 12% in 2023 and 8% in 2022.
Wierod declined to give a forecast for 2025, but was confident about future demand, adding he saw potential for the company in China.
ABB said it was well placed to benefit from the need to reduce the massive energy consumption of data centres as well as the $500 billion private sector investment in AI infrastructure announced by U.S. president Donald Trump last week.
It says its motors and variable speed drives can reduce electricity consumption by up to 60%, while its uninterrupted power supply products run at 97.4% efficiency when converting electricity.
"The need for data center and AI will be very strong in the coming years," Wierod said. "I have no doubt."
(Reporting by John Revill. Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)
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