Vertiv’s David Cote transforms AC maker into AI powerhouse worth over $100B

Most people trying to name the biggest stock market winners of the AI era would start with Nvidia, maybe throw in a hyperscaler or two, and call it a day. Almost nobody would guess a company that spent decades making air conditioning equipment for server rooms. Yet Vertiv Holdings, an 80-year-old maker of critical digital infrastructure, has seen its market cap balloon from under $11 billion to somewhere between $100 billion and $113 billion since going public in early 2020. Its annualized return of 50.5% over that span ranks third in the entire S&P 500, trailing only Comfort Systems at 55.2% and Nvidia at 54.9%. The retired industrialist who almost said no The architect of this improbable transformation is David Cote, a retired industrialist who previously ran Honeywell as CEO from 2002 to 2017. In 2019, he led a SPAC merger through GS Acquisition Holdings that took Vertiv public on February 10, 2020, in a deal valued at roughly $5.3 billion. He has served as Executive Chairman ever since, steering the company’s strategic pivot toward the technology that makes modern AI possible: keeping data centers from overheating. Why cooling is the bottleneck The company holds approximate...