Episode summary
Vertiv's CEO on Nvidia, AI, Growth, and More | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · 24 min · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Gio Albertazzi
Summary
Vertiv’s CEO Gio Albertazzi argues that the company sits at the center of the AI data center buildout because it supplies the physical infrastructure behind IT: power, cooling, services, and increasingly modular systems delivered pre-engineered for rapid deployment. He says Vertiv is benefiting both from stronger industry demand and from its own growing role in shaping future infrastructure alongside major silicon partners, including Nvidia.
Albertazzi says Vertiv reported 24% growth in the second quarter and is guiding to roughly 37% year-on-year growth for 2026, with the second half expected to accelerate as timing issues on large projects are absorbed. He describes the customer base as broad across hyperscalers, colocation providers, enterprises, and newer AI-focused “neo clouds.”
He frames the main industry bottlenecks as power, land, permitting, and construction speed, but argues these are being addressed through behind-the-meter power development, more energy-efficient systems, and greater modularization and prefabrication. On valuation, he points to Vertiv’s long-term growth profile and says the company is building infrastructure for decades, not quarters.
Key takeaways
- Gio Albertazzi says Vertiv is guiding to about 37% year-on-year growth in 2026 and expects second-half growth to reach 45% as project timing issues clear.
- Albertazzi says Vertiv’s main market is data centers, with about 55% of revenue from the Americas and customers spanning hyperscalers, colocation firms, enterprises, and neo clouds.
- The CEO says the biggest industry constraints are power, permitting, land, and construction speed, but he sees modular, prefabricated deployment as the answer.
- Albertazzi says partnerships, including with Nvidia, help Vertiv define the cooling and power infrastructure needed for next-generation AI silicon.
- He argues Vertiv’s services business adds recurring revenue and reinforces customer uptime, making the company a long-duration beneficiary of AI infrastructure spending.
Notable quotes
“Vertiv is a leader, we believe the leader in digital critical infrastructure”
“we see long-term growth. We see an average let's say growth in the in the 5 years out between 20 and 22%”
“the real mantra in the in the industry is, you know, tokens per second per megawatt”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to at Barons. I'm Andy Serwer and welcome to our guest Geo Albertazzi who is the CEO of Vertiv. Geo, nice to see you. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
Well, thank you for having me, Andy. Glad to be here. — So, let's start off for people who aren't familiar with Vertiv. Tell us about what you guys do.
Well, Vertiv is a leader, we believe the leader in digital critical infrastructure. That means everything that is physical infrastructure for the data center, not only data center, also telecom and some commercial industrial, but 80% of our business is in data center. So, everything that is around all the technology that is around the IT, the IT part, the power, the cooling, the services that go with that.
A lot of the physical stuff in inside what in the industry we call the white space. So, where the the sancta sanctorum with all the IT, but also um increasingly infrastructure solution. That means all this technology is modularized and delivered to site pre-engineered, pre-built for a rapid deployment.
And there's a lot of excitement about this business, obviously reflected in your stock, reflected in your revenue growth. We'll get to all that. But what is your order book look like right now? I mean, your revenue, I guess 10.2 billion last year, expected to be 13.75 for this year. For an 80-year-old company, I mean, wow, right?
Well, you know, recently we have we have guided a $14 billion top line for the for this year. The company is much much older than, of course, uh, eight eight years. We come from — It's zero. Eight zeros what is
Oh, eight zeros. Sorry. That that's certainly a different number.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai
- nvidia
- company growth
- ceo outlook
- data center demand
Companies and tickers mentioned
- VRT
- NVDA
- Vertiv
- Nvidia
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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