• CoolIT says it is expanding manufacturing, engineering and R&D in Calgary after Ecolab completed its US$4.75bn acquisition in July
  • Under its previous owner, CoolIT more than doubled its workforce, expanded manufacturing beyond 300,000 sq ft and increased CDU production capacity 25-fold

The fact

CoolIT Systems is expanding manufacturing, engineering and research operations in Calgary as demand rises for liquid cooling used in AI data centres. The expansion includes new hiring, although the company has not disclosed a new headcount target or additional factory space.

Ecolab completed its US$4.75 billion acquisition of CoolIT on 2 July and said the company's year-to-date sales had more than doubled. Former owner KKR said CoolIT added more than 300 jobs after 2023, taking its workforce to about 650. Over the same period, its manufacturing footprint grew beyond 300,000 square feet and its capacity to produce coolant distribution units increased 25-fold. In February, CoolIT said it was producing hundreds of CDUs, thousands of rack manifolds and tens of thousands of coldplate loops each month. The company also plans further production expansion in Canada, China and Vietnam during 2026.

The assessment

The harder part for CoolIT is no longer only designing liquid-cooling equipment for dense AI systems. It also has to manufacture, test and deliver much larger volumes without letting quality or delivery times slip.

That is why the Calgary expansion includes engineering and R&D as well as factory work. AI hardware is still changing quickly, bringing different rack designs and heat loads with each generation. Cooling systems have to be developed, qualified and manufactured in time to match those deployments. If that process falls behind, racks can be ready before the cooling equipment needed to run them.

For BTW readers, CoolIT's expansion puts a manufacturing constraint behind the growth of liquid-cooled AI infrastructure. The next evidence will be whether higher factory output is matched by reliable delivery, product qualification and support as customers deploy more high-density systems.

What to watch

Watch for a new Calgary headcount or facility target, higher disclosed production volumes and any change in manufacturing lead times. Ecolab's results should also show how CoolIT's sales develop after the acquisition. Named hyperscale deployments and reliability data would provide stronger evidence that higher factory output is translating into cooling systems operating at scale.