Name: Vertiv's CEO on Nvidia, AI, Growth, and More
Uploaded: 2026-08-20T15:00:00Z
Duration: 24 min 24 s
Description: Gio Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv, spoke with Barron's editor at large Andy Serwer. This interview was recorded on July 29, 2026.

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Gio Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv, spoke with Barron's editor at large Andy Serwer. This interview was recorded on July 29, 2026.

https://m.wsj.net/video/20260820/abfa67da-f627-466d-b4b1-e22441b3d53f/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Vertiv's CEO on Nvidia, AI, Growth, and More

Hello everyone, and welcome to "At Barons", I'm Andy Serwer. And welcome to our guest, Gio Albertazzi, who is the CEO of Vertiv. Gio, 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 telecommerce, commercial industrial, but 80% of our business is in data center. So everything that is around, all the technology that is around the IT part, the power, the cooling, the services that go with that. A lot of the physical stuff inside what in the industry would call the white space. So where the sanctum sanctorum with all the IT, but also 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 does your order book look like right now? I mean, your revenue, I guess, 10.2 billion last year, expected to be a 13.75 for this year for an 80-year-old company, I mean, wow, right?

Well, recently, we have guided a $14 billion top line for this year. The company's much older than, of course, eight years. We come from-

8-0 is what I said.

Oh, 8-0, sorry, that's certainly a different number. Well, then you got our legacy pretty much right. But yes, certainly a lot of acceleration, not only because the market that we serve is accelerating, as everyone knows, the data center, especially the AI part of a data center, but certainly because of an increasing important role in that industry.

Yeah, your earnings were very, very strong recently. There was some questions about timing disruptions, though. Maybe can you address that a little bit?

Yeah. When we think about our growth, we have reported a 24% growth in the second quarter coming out of a very strong growth in Q1, later part of the last year. So a story of growth and acceleration. So we see our volumes expand. We're building capacity. We are innovating very, very vigorously, and the trajectory is very strong. Trajectory is very strong and will continue to be very strong. If we think about our guided growth for 2026, we are in this moment at 37% year-on-year growth, which is certainly strong. Think about a company that de facto operates in the physical world. So that is a lot of additional capacity, is a lot of additional volume.

Right. So just that timing disruption, nothing for investors to particularly be concerned about?

Increasingly, we are delivering large projects, i.e. technology for large data centers, more and more frequently for us is to deliver infrastructure solutions. Products like Vertiv OneCore, which is a fully optimized converged data center that is delivered in modular chunks. And of course, there is complexity there. There are many factories within Vertiv that serve other factories that then assemble, integrate, and deliver. And sometimes there could be a synchronization element to that. But as we explained recently to our investors, we see growth continue, we see those timing factors being absorbed in the second half of the year. And anyway, our execution strength continues to improve. So very, very confident about the long-term growth, of course, and very, very strong growth in the second half, 45% only in the second half. Fully confident in the backlog and our ability to execute on that.

Great, thanks for explaining that.

Sure.

Let me ask you about your customers, Gio. Who are they? Who are your most important partners? What businesses, what lines of business specifically?

Sure. So our customers, and again, our focus on the biggest part of our business, the data center business, but pretty much we operate across the spectrum of the potential customers in the data center world. So we can start from the hyperscalers, the big names that we all know. More or less every one of them is a customer of ours, but then there is a full ecosystem of what we call co-locators. So data center developers that then either retail their capacity for data center to enterprise or lease to hyperscalers. Again, many players across the world, the majority are working with us. And then there is always the enterprise data center business and group of customers. Recently, then we should add quite an important and rapidly accelerating category of customers that are the so-called neoclouds. So cloud providers that are specialized in AI cloud services. So are those that would deploy almost as a sole business model, deploy AI, cloud, and AI infrastructure.

Is that like a CoreWeave, companies like that?

Companies like that, absolutely.

Right, okay. You've been at the company, at Vertiv, for what, over 25 years now?

A long while.

And I'll go back to predecessor companies, CEO for three and a half years, I think I have that right.

Yes.

What's your plan coming in and how have you had to adapt that given this growth spurt that you guys are going through?

Well, the central point, of course, was around making sure that from a technology standpoint, we were further acceleration our advantage. And that's what we have done relentlessly. That also been possible through very strong partnerships, example, with Nvidia. So not just be someone with very good technology, but also someone who can help the industry define the technology of the future. Working with the major silicon providers, we are and we have been able to define what the infrastructure, the physical cooling, power of the future needs to be to really, let's say, house all the new silicon technology. And that has created for us an opportunity to accelerate faster than the market and grow faster than the market. That has been always a very central aspect of my leadership and something that Vertiv continues to be very focused on. Our R&D spend has been growing quite dramatically over time and will continue to the tune of a 2025 CAGR over time. But it's not just technology. Technology is central, but then it is an ability to operate and scale. The two things need to go hand in hand. The speed at which the market is growing and the speed at which we're growing when not only we grow with a market, but we gain market share in a growing market is such that it requires really almost to constantly rewire culturally and rewire the way you operate. These rates of growth are not common in an industrial world, even in industrial world like we are, that is really a hybrid between tech and industrial. So it is a lot about culture, it's about making sure that we have the capacity, making sure that we have a supply chain that is resilient and capable to support our trajectory. It is partnerships, as I was saying. It is innovation. And very importantly, it is the strength of our relationship with our customers. Again, it's not just about providing technology when they need it. It's about together define what technology will be needed two, three years out there so that our customers and us can develop technology in unison, if you will.

What percentage of the business is in the US, Gio?

I go back to last years and more or less we're talking about Americas. We don't break out necessarily the US, but we're talking the Americas as 55% of the business, and specifically, Volvo. It's easy to imagine that the US is the biggest market in the Americas.

Yeah. The other half of the company is global then. So you're pretty close.

It is very global. We are truly global.

Right. And talk to us about the next phase of the AI CapEx cycle. I mean, particularly maybe where there's bottlenecks and how are customers adjusting their build-out strategy based on that?

Well, when I talk about the industry in general, it's an industry that over the last few years, and probably for the years to come, has always had to face a number of pacing items. The most talked about, and of course, broadly known pacing item is access to power. Access to power seemed to be like creating a ceiling that the industry would not ever be able to break. But, in fact, we see that a lot of power behind the meter is being developed. So again, what seemed to be a constraint has become just a pacing item. So something that the industry is addressing and the industry is growing, creating solution to the power. Now, clearly permitting is another element, access to land, and then you have to access land, power, and permitting at the same time. But again, this is the complexity of the industry, and a lot of savvy operators in the industry are going after these challenges in a very effective manner. And in fact, we see the overall market continues to grow. We see that in our pipelines that are constantly growing and stronger and stronger. But again, when the market grows at that rate, then you have with those pacing items, as I was saying, as a technology provider, you have to address the challenges that are behind those pacing items. So more and more energy efficiency, so that every electron, that hard-fought electron in terms of access to power can be converted in tokens. So now the real mantra in the industry is tokens per second per megawatt. It is how you make sure that every contracted electron, if you will, or generated electron is really utilized to generate revenue-generating tokens. Another element of, let's say, pacing item constraint for the industry is simply speed of construction. The data center industry in the end, or in many respects, is also a construction industry. So clearly, we're trying to run a construction industry almost at a speed of tech. So what happens? That there is a lot of complexity in the construction site. Sometimes there is a shortage of skilled labor. And then, hence you see a change in the way data centers are built from a purely stick build one piece at a time, built together really the construction on site to more and more modularization, prefabrication, and then fast deployment so that everything that is complex is moved within a factory environment, higher quality, lower cost, much higher speed, minimize what happens on site. So these are the things that happen. We are very happy being kind of a thought leader in this space across the entire spectrum of the things I just said.

Another friction point too though, there's some backlash in some areas in terms of setting up and building data centers. Is that a problem, do you think?

Well, we know that there are some jurisdictions that have a certain rule, and some rules can become more stringent or less friendly. We believe that that is not gonna slow the industry altogether. There will be other jurisdictions where the deployments will take place and we see that continuing. The part that we play in this is making sure that our technologies are constantly more efficient from a resource use standpoint.

Right, right.

And really minimize the impact during the construction and when running data centers. And I think we're doing a very good job.

I'm sorry about that. All this is so new, but as I mentioned, as we discussed a little bit, I mean, this company has these roots going all the way back 80 years in Ohio as a cooling business. Then you were part of Emerson Electric. You had a SPAC. Does any of this history matter? I mean, you talk about culture. Is that part of the culture or is it all brand new now?

Culture evolve, of course. We're very proud of our legacy. And I think the thing we are most proud is the depth of knowledge of the industry in which we operate. But that is never enough. You always have to make sure that you evolve as a company. So proud about our legacy. We have deep roots, which just have to make sure that those roots do not become a reason for standing still. And that's not what we're doing.

And just one more sort of legacy piece. I noticed that Dave Cote, the former CEO of Honeywell is the board chair. And he was legendary CEO of Honeywell and led that company. He had a pretty strong track record there. Does he still contribute to your thinking or the business or where you guys are headed?

Very much so. Dave is very active. He's a very active chairman of the board. He's with us frequently. And he is an incredible help for me as a thought leader in leadership. So having an access and having his inputs is extremely helpful. And I believe it creates a lot of value for our shareholders.

Let's talk about the stock a little bit. I mean, a year ago, this baby was what, $70, got down to 70. Then recently it got up to 370, then now down to 270. We've fallen below that a little bit, all over the place, $100 billion market cap. What do you think is the equilibrium here?

Well, as we went back almost 80 years, let me go back to early 2020 when we were first listed at around $10. So of course, a lot of growth since there. I wouldn't talk about equilibrium. I mean, if you go back to what we shared with investors in May, we see long-term growth, we see an average, let's say, growth in the five years out between 20 and 22%. And we see a lot of margin and profits coming alongside that. And oh, by the way, we are going faster than that as we speak. So I'm really optimistic and encouraged by the direction of Vertiv, the direction of the business, and certainly, what we are proving right now in terms of our financial performance. And our role in the industry, and the speed at which the industry is growing is something that encourages me very much for the long term. We are creating as an industry an infrastructure for the next multiple decades. So we see this as a long-term, definitely a long-term trend.

All right, fair enough. But I got to follow up with one more question about the stock.

Yes.

And you were talking about since 2020, I did a calculation, the stock is up, what, around 1,000% over the past five years, for instance. We can do the math. I mean, it's mind-boggling. But for instance, my question is, how do you plan something like compensation, stock-based compensation when you're on a rocket ship like that? What are you guys, it's a head-scratcher, isn't it?

Well, clearly it is a head-scratcher if you just stop. If you all of a sudden plateau, we have no intention to plateau. So if you don't plateau as we believe we are far from doing, you continue to create value for your people. And that's what we have demonstrated so far, and we'll continue on this trajectory.

From an investor standpoint, Gio, there are a number of data center plays now. In fact, everyone's sort of glomming onto it. You get this situation where everyone's involved in the data center visits, whether they really are or are not. Clearly, you guys truly are and have been, but there are other ways to get involved as an investor. Why should an investor focus on Vertiv as opposed to other ways of playing this data center ride?

Well, let me say why Vertiv, and not comment on the as opposed to. I think that our trajectory is certainly very strong, and that is a testament to focus, ability to execute, and also vision in terms of expanding our role and our moat. A role in the industry and our moat through technology. We have made acquisitions that have corroborated that. So it's not just organic innovation, it's organic and inorganic innovation. We know the space extremely well. And we believe we have competitive advantages that are here to stay. One is our services capabilities. And our services capabilities not only corroborate the value that today we bring to the customers as they deploy their very complex infrastructures, but also, during the life cycle of that infrastructure, it generates confidence, and uptime, and efficiency for our customers, and recurring revenue for Vertiv, and certainly for Vertiv's investors. So it's really multidimensional. We know the space, we're growing, we have the technology, and we'll continue to have the technology. We have three strong services. And we have longevity in the business model.

And final question, Gio, I want to ask you a little bit about you, and have us tell you your story. You studied in Italy, you studied at Stanford. How does one end up in the cooling business, now in the data center business?

Well, now in the data center, exactly, not just the cooling, the entire infrastructure, power, cooling, et cetera. It's always a serious coincidence, if you will. Very simply, I was curious about joining a company that had just been acquired by Emerson back then. I say, hey, this is going to be a fun adventure. So I joined and it proved indeed to be a very fun and enjoyable adventure. But the beauty of it is that this adventure gave me the chance to constantly expand my perimeter of experience, let alone operation. So it gave me the chance to really expand across, let's say, general management capabilities. I'm an ops guy by education and by early type of roles, but I think I developed so many different types of roles over time that I really kind of satiated my curiosity over time. My curiosity is pretty insatiable, but as it grows, it kept being satiated. And I think that that also gives Vertiv the opportunity to be led by someone who knows the business and the company very well, and not through the lenses of one or two roles, but pretty, pretty broadly. So that's, I believe, what got me from there to here. But again, as I was saying about Vertiv, we have to always rethink ourselves. The same is true for us individually, and certainly, for me as a leader.

Gio Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks a lot.

This is "At Barron's". I'm Andy Serwer. We'll catch you next time.