How Johnson Controls is powering Europe’s data centre race

For Johnson Controls, the global data centre race is only continuing to heat up.

Austin Domenici, president of global data centre solutions at Johnson Controls, was eager to share how the company can offer something unique to the industry. For one thing, its thermal expertise has been elevated to a global scale so that it can support critical environments.

“What I want people to take away is: if you haven’t checked out Johnson Controls recently, come and look at us – because if it’s in a data centre, we probably do it,” he said.

Scaling across Europe

Speaking ahead of Datacloud Global Congress, Domenici explained how – as data centre environments grow more complex and energy-intensive – the work Johnson Controls is doing has never been more important.

Speaking with Capacity at the event itself, he was able to provide greater insight into the company’s capabilities and how it leverages its critical partners to support thermal management development.

“We’re showcasing so much [at Datacloud] – including our CDU capability that is designed and configurable and our air-side solutions. Even though liquid cooling is increasing, we still have a mix of liquid and air.”

Johnson Controls was also able to share insights into its fire detection, fire suppression and controls solutions, which, although not as central to its thermal offerings, are still important, Domenici explained.

“We also brought our modular data centre to share. It’s an air-cooled modular data centre that was built in Europe,” he added. “We manufacture plenty in Europe, which has been great to showcase.”

The company is committed to advancing its cooling segment, having recently acquired the thermal technology innovator, Alloy Enterprises.

“They can produce really unique thermal transfer geometries and heat capture geometries that nobody else can make, given their processes,” Domenici explained.

“The key message [from Johnson Controls] is that we cover the whole thermal chain with controls – we can build in a modular way to save you time, we own all the components of the technology so we can optimise it in ways others can’t and we own the supply chain, so we can help with sourcing too.”

Maximising cooling potential

Although still behind the US, Europe is undergoing a dramatic AI boom and is catching up quickly. From a Johnson Controls perspective, Domenici explained how the company is seeing an uptick in production across the continent.

“There is a strong desire for in-region production, which is something we can help serve customers with,” he said. “There’s also a real reliance on field expertise; commissioning, service and so on. If you have a solid field organisation and strong technician expertise, that helps enormously.”

Despite such rapid changes, Domenici said the industry is finding complexity a significant challenge, given the number of different components involved and how many different partners data centre companies can have.

“The more customers can get from one partner, the easier their life becomes,” he added. “We’re getting more and more requests for a broader line card. We’re also seeing more CDU and liquid cooling deployments, which is exciting.”

Considering this scale, Johnson Controls is working more on its liquid cooling investments – which involved several smart investments, including its Silent-Aire acquisition in 2021. Through this company, it has developed very strong hyperscaler and customer relationships where it co-designs and then scales production.

“Then, through the Alloy acquisition, we can also handle the heat capture side,” Domenici said.

Additional investments involved an investment into Excelsior, a partner focused on two-phase direct-to-chip cooling, to help capture and transfer heat efficiently. The company has also invested in modular data centre company, Armada, building modular data centres more broadly. They recently launched a new product together – a modular data centre at almost two megawatts that is fast to deploy.

“Our heat rejection products, our chillers, are custom designed to enable liquid cooling,” Domenici noted. “Because of that technology, you can run without oil, which enables a lot of exciting capabilities.”

Removing complexity to fuel innovation

As the industry looks to invest more sustainably and reduce complexity, Johnson Controls is focusing on integrating the thermal chain and optimising performance. Domenici said the company is eager to raise its profile across Europe so more industry leaders know what they’re doing.

“We have a lot of customers in this space – hyperscalers, neo-clouds, colos – and we play in every region around the world,” he explained. “Making sure our customers know our full suite of innovation is really our mission this year.”

Particularly as market demand swells, the return on assets for plenty of Johnson Controls customers remains strong. Domenici said this is currently showing no signs of slowing down.

“EMEA is ramping up significantly, with real momentum in APAC too,” he added. “Whatever you can do to increase efficiency and reduce power consumption, the market will want. And anything you can do to modularise or deliver solutions faster, so customers can generate revenue sooner, will be taking place a lot.”

To make the most of this growth, Johnson Controls is also looking beyond the data centre to solve labour and power challenges and work more with local communities where it has a presence.

“We have deep field expertise from work in district heating and cooling, warming swimming pools and greenhouses,” Domenici explained. “We hire technicians locally and work with legislators and local governments – the key is to bring everyone in early and communicate transparently to operate as quietly as possible and deliver genuine value to the community.”

He added: “This is all experience that we want to leverage in this segment of the market. Up to now, the focus has largely been on getting data centres up and running. But these facilities generate enormous amounts of heat, and that heat is an asset.

“If we can figure out how to reuse it, that’s real value for the market.”

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