LG lands multibillion dollar deal to cool North American AI data centers
LG Electronics will supply chillers for 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity under a long-term agreement with U.S.-based AIR Control Concept.
From top left, Don Kwack, chief executive of LG Electronics' North America; James Lee, president and head of LG Electronics' Eco Solutions business; and, from bottom left, Chris Ahn, president of LG Electronics USA’s Air Conditioning Technology division, and Hayden Bland, president of AIR Control Concept (AIR), and other AIR executives pose for a photo at the signing ceremony for a long-term chiller supply contract between LG and AIR. The location and date of the photo are unspecified.
LG ELECTRONICS
LG Electronics has won a long-term contract to supply chillers for AI data centers (AIDC) in North America, with a total capacity of 5 gigawatts.
The company's U.S. subsidiary said Monday that it recently signed a long-term supply agreement with AIR Control Concept (AIR), a North American infrastructure platform company.
The contract value was not disclosed, but an LG Electronics spokesperson said it was worth several trillion won, or several billion dollars.
LG will supply chillers and other cooling equipment in phases for AIDCs totaling 5 gigawatts.
AIR designs and builds data centers in the United States and Canada and also handles public procurement and aftermarket services. It executes large projects through its data center subsidiary, AIR Mission Critical, and counts major data center operators worldwide as clients.
LG said the long-term contract, which guarantees large volumes, shows that its products meet the technical and reliability standards of hyperscale data centers.
Cooling has become one of the main constraints in building AI data centers. AI servers rely on high-performance GPUs, which consume far more power and give off far more heat than conventional servers. Overheated chips slow down or fail, which is why chillers are a central piece of equipment in most data center cooling systems.
Traditional data centers mostly use air cooling, which blows cold air across the servers. As power density per rack rises, air alone is often not enough, and operators are increasingly adding liquid cooling, which brings cold water or other coolant close to the chips to absorb heat directly. In such systems, a coolant distribution unit (CDU) manages the flow and temperature of the coolant that reaches the chips.
LG and AIR are discussing expanding the supply to include CDUs. LG is also broadening its portfolio to cover thermal management for both air and liquid cooling.
The cooling business is expected to grow as AI drives demand for more data center capacity. Worldwide data center power capacity is expected to grow by 108 gigawatts in a single year, from 226 gigawatts in 2026 to 334 gigawatts in 2027, according to market researcher Omdia.
LG's AIDC cooling orders topped 600 billion won ($446.4 million) in the first half of this year, and the company expects cumulative orders to reach several trillion won by year-end. It also expects to reach its target of 1 trillion won in chiller sales ahead of the original schedule of the end of 2027.
LG began supplying and installing cooling equipment this year for a large North American AIDC project it won last year. It has also won deals for major data centers elsewhere in the world, including the Middle East and Indonesia.
"Based on our differentiated technologies, including high-efficiency chillers and high-performance liquid cooling solutions, and our experience supplying rapidly expanding large-scale data centers, we will lead the global AIDC cooling market," said James Lee, president and head of LG Electronics' global heating, ventilation and air conditioning and AI data center thermal management operations.
BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]
