Commercial HVAC manufacturers are experiencing a significant surge in demand, primarily driven by the escalating need for cooling solutions in AI-driven data centers. Companies like AAON saw their shares jump over 50% after reporting record Q1 net sales of $496.9 million, a 54.3% increase year-over-year, and a backlog of $2.1 billion, up 107.4%. The company raised its full-year 2026 revenue growth outlook to 40-45% with gross margins projected at 27-28%. This boom is largely attributed to the "insatiable demand" from tech giants building AI infrastructure, with AAON's BASX-branded sales, specializing in hyperscale data center cooling, surging 72.4% to $228.6 million.
Japanese air-conditioning giant Daikin also reported record revenue and profit for the fiscal year ending March 2026, with revenue rising 5.5% to approximately $31.7 billion and net profit climbing 4.0% to about $1.74 billion. A significant portion of this growth came from data center cooling equipment, particularly in the United States. Daikin aims to grow its North American data center cooling revenue to over $1.9 billion by 2030. The company highlighted that cooling systems are becoming increasingly critical for managing the immense heat generated by AI server clusters, often accounting for 30-40% of a data center's total power consumption.
Other companies are also cashing in on the AI cooling wave. Comfort Systems' backlog doubled to $12.45 billion, with Q1 EPS exceeding expectations by 54% at $10.51 and organic revenue growth hitting 51% year-over-year. Vertiv, a specialist in data center power and cooling, boasts a $15 billion order backlog, up 109%, and provided full-year 2026 sales guidance of about $13.75 billion. Modine Manufacturing secured a $4 billion long-term agreement for chiller sales with a major hyperscale customer, and its data center sales grew 158% year-over-year, crossing $400 million in quarterly revenue. Modine now expects multi-year data center growth of 50-70% annually.
Traditional home appliance manufacturers are also entering this lucrative market. LG Electronics, an early mover in HVAC, provides a full lineup of data center cooling products and has secured contracts for hyperscale AI data centers. Samsung Electronics acquired Europe's largest HVAC company, FlaktGroup, for approximately 2.4 trillion won last year, aiming to become a top-tier global HVAC player by 2030. Both companies see the rapidly expanding data center cooling market as their next-generation growth engine, driven by the proliferation of artificial intelligence.
The consensus among analysts is that the AI buildout is creating a significant bottleneck in cooling infrastructure, which these companies are well-positioned to address. The massive backlog and strong financial outlooks across the sector underscore the growing importance of thermal management in supporting the artificial intelligence boom, shifting market interest towards established industrial sectors that provide critical infrastructure for AI.
