ABB CEO 'very confident' of demand for data centers powering AI

By John Revill

ZURICH (Reuters) -Switzerland's ABB is "very confident" about future demand from data centers that power artificial intelligence, its CEO Morten Wierod told Reuters.

The engineering company has seen double-digit percentage growth this year in orders for electrification products from data centers being built to meet AI and cloud computing demand.

CEO CONFIDENT IN DATA CENTRE DEMAND

"Over the next five years I am very confident about demand from data centers," Wierod said on Thursday.

"I don't think there is a bubble, but we do see do see some constraints in terms of construction capacity not keeping up with all the new investments," he added.

"We are talking about trillions in investment," he said, adding: "That will take a few years to implement because there is not enough people and resources to build all this."

AI is only in its early stages, leaving room for growth in data center demand, while many newcomers are joining large tech companies in the sector, Wierod said.

ABB generated some 7% of its revenue from data center business this year, up from 6% in 2024, selling electrification systems, including medium and low voltage switchgear and uninterruptible power solutions to keep servers online.

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ABB announced a partnership agreement with chip maker Nvidia earlier this week to develop electrification products for the next generation of chips used in data centers.

"That's not for 2025 or 2026, it's more of a long term investment," Wierod said. "It's very important to be part of the future technology developments."

While the majority of ABB's business is for new-build sites, Wierod also saw opportunities in retro-fitting and upgrading.

"For some of the older, smaller size data centres, you will need to upgrade the racks with equipment, and you also need to have more power coming in," he said.

"That is a big opportunity," he added.

(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Alexander Smith)