Ecolab Bets $4.75 Billion on AI Data-Center Cooling With CoolIT Deal

CoolIT Systems, a Calgary-based cooling technology supplier to the data center industry, agreed to be sold to Ecolab Inc. for $4.75 billion in cash in a deal that crystallizes just how much the AI infrastructure buildout has reordered corporate priorities. CoolIT was acquired by KKR and Mubadala Investment Co., a sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, in June 2023 for just $270 million. Three years later, Ecolab paid nearly 18 times that amount.

"AI is transforming the demands on data centers, and liquid cooling is one of the critical technologies that makes advanced computing possible," said Christophe Beck, Ecolab chairman and chief executive officer. "By bringing together CoolIT's engineered cooling technologies with Ecolab's expertise in water, chemistry and digital service, we can provide our customers a complete cooling solution that improves performance and reliability while reducing water and energy use."

The St. Paul-based Ecolab's acquisition is its largest in more than a decade, and it marks a deliberate shift away from the company's traditional water treatment and hygiene roots toward AI data center infrastructure. CoolIT is a pure-play data center liquid cooling company with end-to-end capabilities that designs and manufactures high-performance liquid cooling systems, including coolant distribution units (CDUs), cold plates and direct-to-chip cooling technologies. The Calgary company's technology is used in seven of the top 10 supercomputers, and its customers include four of the top five server manufacturers and four of the five hyperscaler tech giants leading the data-center construction wave.

CoolIT is expected to generate approximately $550 million in sales over the next 12 months. Under the terms of the agreement, Ecolab will pay approximately $4.75 billion in cash at closing, subject to customary adjustments, representing 29x and 24x estimated next 12-month and 2027 adjusted EBITDA for CoolIT. To fund the purchase, the acquisition will be financed with new transaction debt, with pro forma net debt to adjusted EBITDA anticipated to be approximately 3 times at close, returning to 2 times leverage by the end of the second year after closing.

With CoolIT's rapid sales growth, the acquisition is expected to significantly strengthen the company's Global High-Tech growth engine and accelerate Global Water's organic sales growth rate by 2% and Ecolab's total organic sales growth rate by 1%. Earnings per share accretion, excluding amortization, is not expected until 2028, but the contribution is expected to build "significantly thereafter," the buyer said.

The deal also reshapes Ecolab's addressable market. CoolIT will double Ecolab's Global High-Tech market opportunity from $5 billion to $10 billion, with this market growing strong double-digits annually. By combining CoolIT's anchor thermal engineering technologies with Ecolab's expertise in water, chemistry, fluid management, digital monitoring and global service, Ecolab is bolstering its Cooling-as-a-Service offering. The combination complements Ecolab's existing reach across more than 1,000 data centers by providing deep preexisting relationships with the world's major hyperscaler and colocation customers.

CoolIT was founded in 2001 to provide liquid cooling systems for high-end gaming PCs, and in 2012 it pivoted to high-performance computing and data centers, providing specialized cooling systems for some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, including the El Capitan 1.8 exaFLOP system. Through its Liquid Lab R&D centers in Calgary and Taipei, and global manufacturing operations in Canada, China, and Vietnam, CoolIT serves customers with on-site support in more than 80 countries.

Surging AI chip demands are driving the transition from traditional air-cooled technologies to more efficient liquid cooling methods, and Ecolab is not the only company making a move. In November 2025, Daikin Applied Americas announced the purchase of Chilldyne, an experienced player in liquid cooling known for its negative pressure systems for HPC and AI data centers. The pace of consolidation underscores how thermal management has become a strategic chokepoint for the entire AI supply chain.

In December, Ecolab also closed on a $1.7 billion deal to acquire Ovivo Inc., a Switzerland-based company that provides ultrapure water technologies for data centers and semiconductor manufacturing. CoolIT's liquid cooling hardware can be sold alongside that portfolio, giving Ecolab an integrated set of products spanning fluid chemistry, water treatment, and now direct-to-chip cooling hardware.

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. For KKR and co-investor Mubadala, the exit converts a $270 million bet placed at the dawn of the generative AI era into one of the largest private equity returns in Canadian technology history.