Who makes chillers & compressors for AI data centers

Chillers sit at the facility side of the cooling chain, producing the chilled water that circulates through CRAH units (6.03) and, for liquid-cooled halls, through the facility water loop (6.05) toward the CDU interface described in Layer 5. Chiller type — centrifugal, screw, magnetic-bearing, or absorption — governs efficiency at part load, which matters more for data centers than for typical buildings because IT load runs near-constant rather than swinging with occupancy or weather. Densification pushes plants toward larger, fewer chiller blocks and toward warmer chilled-water setpoints that stretch the hours dry coolers (6.02) can carry the load without compressors engaging at all. Compressors are the component most exposed to broader HVAC demand: large chiller orders queue behind commercial and industrial cooling demand as well as data center demand, so lead time is a scheduling variable in its own right. Investors should watch order backlogs at the major chiller OEMs, how much of a campus's cooling load compressors actually carry versus free-cooling hours, and the split between mechanical-first and adiabatic-first plant designs.