Ecolab Agrees to Acquire CoolIT for $4.75 Billion

ST. PAUL, MN -- Ecolab has agreed to acquire CoolIT Systems, a high-growth, high-margin provider of liquid cooling technology for next-gen AI data centers, for $4.75 billion.
 
CoolIT is expected to generate approximately $550 million in sales over the next 12 months. It 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.

With this 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%.

The acquisition, from funds managed by KKR, positions Ecolab as a comprehensive cooling solutions provider by advancing its capabilities across the rapidly growing data center market.

By combining CoolIT’s anchor thermal engineering technologies and design excellence with Ecolab’s expertise in water, chemistry, fluid management, digital monitoring and global service, Ecolab is bolstering its Cooling-as-a-Service offering. This integrated solution helps AI data centers improve performance, reduce downtime and lower water use across their operations.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ecolab will pay approximately $4.75 billion in cash at the closing of the transaction, subject to customary adjustments. This represents 29x and 24x estimated next 12-month and 2027 adjusted EBITDA for CoolIT.

“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 acquisition 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, with strong revenue growth visibility from large-scale data center deployments. CoolIT also contributes advanced engineering, design and validation capabilities, highlighted by custom-designed solutions for leading AI chip developers, including NVIDIA and AMD, along with manufacturing and supply chain expertise to support rapid scaling.

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Ecolab has $16 billion in annual sales, 48,000 associates and customers in more than 170 countries and 40 industries.

For more information, go to www.ecolab.com.