Vertiv is expanding manufacturing and testing operations at its Tognana campus near Padua, betting that the surge in AI-driven cooling requirements will make thermal infrastructure one of data centre investment's defining constraints through the rest of the decade.
The company expects to double chiller production capacity at the site by the end of 2026 and complete a new large-scale testing laboratory in early 2027. The expansion also opens additional roles at the campus, which functions as one of Vertiv's principal European centres for cooling technology, combining R&D, product management, manufacturing, and a Customer Experience Centre for live witness testing.
Tognana has been in Vertiv's portfolio since the 1960s, when it was home to the Liebert and Hiross brands. Alongside the Castel Guelfo facility near Bologna, it forms one of the company's main European technology hubs and is among 30 Vertiv Academy training sites globally.
The new testing laboratory is intended to validate chiller integration with liquid cooling systems under high-density load conditions and a wide temperature range — exactly the profile that AI workloads generate. High-density AI infrastructure creates thermal demands that are materially different in both intensity and variability from the loads traditional data centre cooling was designed around, and Vertiv has been steadily expanding capacity to match.
"AI is driving thermal demands that didn't exist two years ago, with higher densities, faster deployment demands, and no room to compromise on reliability," said Gio Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv. "The expansion at Tognana puts us further ahead with more manufacturing capacity, integrated testing, and advanced thermal management systems built for current and future generations of silicon."
Sam Bainborough, Vice President for the thermal business at Vertiv in EMEA, said the expanded campus would serve markets across the region and further afield: "By expanding manufacturing, integrated testing and our local talent base, we are strengthening the campus's role in serving customers across EMEA and other global markets while creating skilled opportunities in the region."
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