Synopsis: India’s AI and cloud expansion is creating an unexpected infrastructure opportunity cooling systems. As data centres scale rapidly, thermal management may become as important as electricity, placing select HVAC and engineering companies in focus.
India’s digital infrastructure story is entering a new phase. Until now, most attention around data centres has been on land, electricity, and connectivity. But with AI workloads rising sharply, the next big constraint may be heat
High-performance servers powered by NVIDIA GPUs and hyperscaler demand from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are increasing rack density and heat generation inside data centres. That means cooling is no longer a support layer it is becoming mission-critical.
According to S&P Global Ratings, India’s data centre capacity could rise from 1.5 GW currently to 3–3.5 GW over the next 4–5 years, with nearly ₹23,500 crore expected to be invested in cooling and thermal management infrastructure, amidst this there exist companies foreplaying their role to mitigate the issues.
KRN Heat Exchanger — The component play targeting 50% market share
KRN manufactures aluminium and copper fin-and-tube heat exchangers, the hardware inside chillers, dry air coolers, and precision air-conditioning systems that keep data centre racks from throttling. KRN does not sell to data centres directly it sells to the companies that make cooling systems like Daikin, Schneider Electric, Voltas, and Blue Star.
The hyperscale ambition: KRN’s more aggressive bet is on hyperscale data centres directly. The company has developed the capability to manufacture extremely large custom heat exchangers that hyperscale deployments require, a technically differentiated product that most Indian HVAC manufacturers cannot match.
Management estimates the heat exchanger opportunity from Google’s planned Visakhapatnam data centre alone at ₹1,500 crore, and has set a target of capturing 50% of the Indian hyperscale heat exchanger market.
To pursue this, it expanded manufacturing capacity approximately 6x at a new Neemrana facility commissioned in May 2025. Data centre revenue contribution has moved from 7% to 15% of the mix in a single year, and a recently secured lowest-bidder position across an 80–90 SKU contract with a major prospective hyperscale client signals the next step up.
Voltas — Tata’s cooling giant using a single-vendor playbook to lock in data centre orders
Voltas is India’s largest air conditioning companys expanding into the data center segment through its mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) vertical, with the product range it is bringing, Screw Chillers, regular Centrifugal Chillers, and oil-free Centrifugal Chillers.
The efficiency edge and what it means commercially
Following a new technology partnership, Voltas claims best-in-class energy efficiency in both Screw and Centrifugal categories. This matters disproportionately in data centres, where energy costs are the single largest line item in the operating budget.
What separates Voltas from most cooling equipment suppliers in this space is its MEP contracting capability. By bundling chiller supply with full mechanical, electrical, and plumbing project execution, Voltas can bid as a single-source vendor a structure that data centre developers, working to compressed 9–12 month commissioning timelines, actively prefer.
Blue Star – Liquid Cooling Opportunity
Blue Star is focusing on higher-margin data centre projects while also investing in next-generation liquid cooling technologies. Its MEP and EPC execution capabilities make it a market leader in data centre build-outs beyond just equipment supply, which generates recurring project-based revenue streams that complement product sales and as AI workloads become denser, traditional air cooling may become less efficient in some use-cases. That could increase relevance of liquid cooling systems, creating a fresh growth segment for Blue Star.
The Threat Stock to Watch
Aeroflex Industries — already shipping what the others are still building toward
KRN, Voltas, and Blue Star are all pursuing the data centre cooling opportunity from the same starting point, existing air-side product lines, with liquid cooling either on a 12-month development runway (Blue Star) or absent from the roadmap entirely (KRN, Voltas). All three are betting the transition happens slowly enough that their current businesses capture the near-term wave before liquid cooling dominates the hyperscale segment.
Aeroflex Industries is where that bet gets stress-tested. The ₹4,000 crore smallcap already holds an exclusive liquid cooling supply contract with a large listed US hyperscaler for India deployments not a pipeline, not an NDA conversation, but a second confirmed order already received in Q2FY26. It has tripled skid assembly capacity to 6,000 units annually from April 2026, targeting 15,000 by June, backed by funded capex with Ashish Kacholia among the allottees. The others are promising liquid cooling. Aeroflex is already invoicing for it.
India’s AI-led data centre boom is creating a strong opportunity for cooling infrastructure among players such as Voltas Ltd, Blue Star Ltd, and KRN Heat Exchanger and Refrigeration Ltd. However, the real risk is faster adoption of liquid cooling for high-density AI racks. If that shift accelerates, niche players like Aeroflex Industries Ltd could challenge traditional HVAC leaders. Investors may need to track not just demand growth, but which cooling technology ultimately dominates.
Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on tradebrains.in are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Investing in equities poses a risk of financial losses. Investors must therefore exercise due caution while investing or trading in stocks. Trade Brains Technologies Private Limited or the author are not liable for any losses caused as a result of the decision based on this article. Please consult your investment advisor before investing.
The post 3 Stocks Set to Benefit from ₹23,500 Cr Data Centre Cooling Investment in India appeared first on Trade Brains.
Original Article
(Disclaimer – This post is auto-fetched from publicly available RSS feeds. Original source: Tradebrains. All rights belong to the respective publisher.)
