Data center power and cooling company Vertiv is to acquire microgrid firm UtilityInnovation.

NYSE-listed Vertiv Holdings this week announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Vertiv Corporation, has entered into an agreement and plan of merger to acquire Utility Innovation Holdings, Inc., which operates as UtilityInnovation Group (UIG).

The deal is for approximately $1.45 billion in cash at closing, with additional consideration of up to $1.15 billion in cash based on achieving certain financial targets over 12- and 24-month periods. The transaction is expected to close later this year.

Founded in 2020 and based in Raleigh, North Carolina, UIG designs and delivers power systems that support real-time load and frequency balancing across behind-the-meter systems and utility-connected energy resources. Its solutions include proprietary controls software, customized microgrid switchgear and energy storage. Volvo Penta previously invested in the company.

Vertiv said the acquisition will see the company move upstream to the grid interconnect, adding microgrid controls, on-site generation and energy storage orchestration, and behind-the-meter power architecture to help data center operators secure power faster amid ongoing grid constraints.

“For AI data center operators, competitive advantage increasingly depends on how quickly they can move from site selection to first token,” said Gio Albertazzi, Vertiv CEO. “Vertiv has the most complete power and cooling portfolio in the industry. With UIG, we anticipate extending that portfolio upstream to the utility interconnect and onsite power sources, creating a coordinated architecture from source to chip without tying customers to a single generation technology or supplier.”

Albertazzi continued: “Together, we anticipate being better positioned to support grid-connected sites, bridge-to-grid deployments and islanded sites supplied by onsite generation, while reducing complexity from site planning through rack-level deployment. This broader capability can help customers accelerate time to power and, ultimately, time to first token.”

One of the major players in the data center supply chain, Vertiv has been busy on the M&A front. 2026 has seen the company acquire data center cooling firm ThermoKey, prefab enclosure maker Bmarko, and coldplate specialist Strategic Thermal Labs.

UIG founder and CEO Sidney Hinton added: “UIG was founded to solve increasingly complex power challenges for data center operators through flexible, technology-agnostic architectures. Vertiv’s global scale, critical infrastructure portfolio and service capabilities make it a strong strategic fit for what we have built. We believe this combination can expand the reach of UIG’s microgrid controls and power architecture expertise and create greater value for customers as power becomes an increasingly critical constraint on data center growth.”

Hinton previously founded PowerSecure, a provider of utility and energy technologies that was bought out in 2016 by Southern Company for $431 million.

UtilityInnovation last year partnered with EPC Power Corp. to launch a new power system offering engineered for AI data centers.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC is acting as financial advisor to Vertiv, and Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC is serving as legal counsel. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is acting as financial advisor to UIG, and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is serving as legal counsel.

With the boom in liquid cooling to support AI workloads, Vertiv has acquired a number of businesses to bolster its offering.

In 2023, the company acquired coolant distribution infrastructure provider CoolTera. The next year, it picked up centrifugal chiller technology and assets from BiXin Energy Technology Co.

Last year, it bought automation platform WayLay.io, which develops monitoring and control technologies for power and cooling systems. It also acquired rack maker Great Lakes for $200m and mechanical flushing firm PurgeRite.