Vertiv and Caterpillar have announced a strategic partnership aimed at addressing the rapidly rising energy and cooling demands of next-generation data centres, particularly those supporting large-scale artificial intelligence workloads.
Under the collaboration, the two companies will develop pre-engineered reference architectures that combine Caterpillar’s on-site power generation systems with Vertiv’s thermal management, electrical distribution and modular infrastructure technologies. The goal is to provide data centre operators with a faster, more resilient pathway to deploying on-site power, reducing reliance on increasingly constrained electrical grids.
The partnership reflects a shift in how high-density data centres are planned and built. As AI-driven workloads place unprecedented strain on power and cooling capacity, operators are increasingly turning to natural gas turbines, reciprocating engines and combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) systems to secure reliable energy supply or operate with greater independence from the grid.
As part of the agreement, Caterpillar and its subsidiary Solar Turbines will supply the power generation infrastructure for the new designs, while Vertiv will contribute modular power and cooling units, including power distribution, mechanical systems and thermal technologies. Together, the companies aim to deliver fully integrated, interoperability-tested building blocks that allow design, construction and deployment to progress in parallel.
Vertiv said the initiative is central to its “Bring Your Own Power & Cooling” strategy, aligning on-site generation with its grid-to-chip approach. By integrating complementary technologies at an early stage, the partners expect to deliver more predictable system performance and improved scalability for customers.
The collaboration directly responds to the energy intensity of AI training clusters, which demand far more power and cooling than traditional enterprise data centres. Lengthy grid interconnection queues and delayed expansion projects have further accelerated interest in on-site generation, as operators seek to shorten time-to-power and avoid deployment bottlenecks.
A key focus of the partnership is modularity. Vertiv’s pre-engineered modules integrate power distribution, static transfer switches, uninterruptible power supply systems and cooling technologies, which can be deployed alongside Caterpillar’s generators and CCHP solutions. This modular approach allows construction and system integration to occur simultaneously, rather than sequentially, helping to speed up deployment timelines.
Designing power and cooling as a unified architecture may also improve overall facility efficiency. Early-stage integration can reduce energy losses and improve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), compared with facilities where systems from multiple vendors are combined late in the build process.
The agreement also underscores a broader industry shift toward reduced dependence on local grids. While full grid independence is not the objective for most hyperscale operators, the ability to generate a significant share of power on site is becoming increasingly important, particularly in regions facing grid capacity constraints.
Both Vertiv and Caterpillar will support customers through their global service networks, providing lifecycle services for power generation, electrical infrastructure and thermal management systems. The companies say this end-to-end support will be critical for operators planning large-scale, multi-regional data centre deployments.
