--- title: "Trane buys its own coil supplier the day Nvidia promises near-zero-water AI factories" description: "Trane Technologies agreed on October 21 to buy Cancoil Thermal, the family firm that already supplies its heat-rejection coils, the same day Nvidia showcased an AI-factory blueprint it says needs almost no water. Both announcements value the same layer: the hardware that carries heat out of the building." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Data Center" published: 2026-10-22T17:30:48.447Z modified: 2026-10-22T17:30:48.447Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/trane-buys-its-own-coil-supplier-the-day-nvidia-promises-near-zero-water-ai-factories language: en keywords: "Data Centers, Cooling, M&A, Nvidia, Trane Technologies" --- # Trane buys its own coil supplier the day Nvidia promises near-zero-water AI factories > Trane Technologies agreed on October 21 to buy Cancoil Thermal, the family firm that already supplies its heat-rejection coils, the same day Nvidia showcased an AI-factory blueprint it says needs almost no water. Both announcements value the same layer: the hardware that carries heat out of the building. ## A family firm sells to its own customer On October 21, [Trane Technologies](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/trane-technologies) (NYSE: TT) agreed to buy Cancoil Thermal, the Ontario, Canada manufacturer that already supplies coils and coolers to its chiller and air-handling businesses [1][2]. Cancoil was founded in 1983 by Chander and Anju Datta and employs more than 450 people at plants in Ontario and Jacksonville, Texas [1]. Terms were not disclosed; the deal is expected to close before the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval, with investment bank Lazard advising Cancoil [1][2][3]. Chief Operating Officer Donny Simmons called Cancoil "a critical capability at the right time," and [the announcement lists data centers first among its end markets](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/trane-technologies-acquire-cancoil-strengthening-203000885.html) [1]. The stock closed up 2.17% at about $471.42 [3]. ## Nvidia's blueprint still ends at a dry cooler The same day at GTC Berlin, [Nvidia](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nvidia)'s conference, the chipmaker [said European partners are building AI factories on DSX](https://thenextweb.com/news/nvidia-dsx-european-ai-factories), its reference design that treats chips, power and cooling as one system, and it named [Trane](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/trane-technologies) among the participating engineering firms [4]. The near-zero-water claim is a hardware claim: coolant runs past the chips in a closed loop and releases its heat to the outdoor air through dry coolers, with no water evaporated [4][5]. Nvidia says a two-gigawatt site built that way saves 54 million litres a day [4], the daily water use of 180,000 households [5]. ![Rows of V-shaped dry coolers standing in a manufacturer's yard at sunset](https://storage.googleapis.com/theinference-public/img/cb44359a21d0eaff.jpg) *Dry coolers built by Italy's LU-VE: hardware that rejects heat to outdoor air with no water evaporated, the layer at the center of both announcements. (Nico aspe 22 via Wikimedia Commons)* Trane [has already published seven thermal reference designs, three of them 250-megawatt DSX blueprints](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/trane-technologies-expands-data-center-thermal-management-system-portfolio-with-two-new-250-megawatt-ce785addd980f525); one pairs modular cooling plants from Stellar Energy, bought alongside liquid-cooling maker LiquidStack, with dry fluid coolers stacked on top [5][6]. Cancoil's fluid coolers and coils are that layer. ## The prices nobody disclosed The Nvidia camp wants to compress the build itself: [DSX POD, a factory-built container design, cuts deployment at a prepared site from six months to as little as 14 days](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-introduces-dsx-pod-ai-093400382.html), with Dell, Schneider Electric and [Vertiv](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/vertiv) delivering in early 2027 [7]. Inside the same program, Vertiv's 2.3-megawatt CoolChip coolant unit is DSX Ready beside Trane's GigaModular, rivals listed side by side [5]. ## Demand shows in the books, the bill does not Demand shows in Trane's books: second-quarter revenue hit $6.4 billion, up 10.6% in a year, and [backlog reached a record $12.1 billion, up 70%](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001466258), mainly on data-center chillers [8][9]. Trane locks in coil supply against that backlog, the Datta family sells a 40-year-old firm to its own customer, and independent coil makers now face a market consolidating around the incumbents they supply [1][2][6][8]. What no document carries is the bill: Trane never disclosed what it paid for Cancoil [1][2], and the prices of LiquidStack and Stellar appear nowhere in the coverage here [6][8]. *Chart: **Trane's quarterly revenue hit a record $6.4B in Q2 2026** Column chart of Trane Technologies quarterly revenue from Q3 2023 to Q2 2026 in billions of dollars, rising from $4.9 billion to a record $6.4 billion.* *Quarterly revenue, USD billions, from Trane Technologies' SEC filings; Q2 2026 ended June 30, 2026. Backlog note from The Motley Fool, August 20, 2026. [8][9]* Trane reports third-quarter results on October 29 [6]; the Cancoil deal is expected to close by year-end [2][3]. Nvidia can standardize the chip side of cooling; the heat still has to leave the building through somebody's coils. ## Takeaway Trane is buying its own coil supplier as its data-center backlog hits a record $12.1 billion; Nvidia's same-day DSX showcase pushes AI-factory cooling toward dry, standardized hardware, and neither side has disclosed what the coils cost. ## Sources 1. [Business Wire via Yahoo Finance, "Trane Technologies to Acquire Cancoil, Strengthening Supply Chain Resiliency and Thermal Management Expertise," 21 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/trane-technologies-acquire-cancoil-strengthening-203000885.html) 2. [Dow Jones Newswires via MarketWatch, "Trane Technologies Agrees to Acquire Cancoil," 21 October 2026](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trane-technologies-agrees-to-acquire-cancoil-f9e1449d) 3. [Seeking Alpha, "Trane Technologies expands heat-transfer business with Cancoil deal," 21 October 2026](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4655603-trane-technologies-expands-heat-transfer-business-with-cancoil-deal) 4. [The Next Web, "Nvidia says European partners are adopting DSX to cut AI factory water use," 21 October 2026](https://thenextweb.com/news/nvidia-dsx-european-ai-factories) 5. [Dataquest, "European ecosystem builds world's most efficient AI Factories with Nvidia DSX," 22 October 2026](https://www.dqindia.com/semiconductors/european-ecosystem-builds-worlds-most-efficient-ai-factories-with-nvidia-dsx-12737537) 6. [S&P Capital IQ via MarketScreener, "Trane Technologies Expands Data Center Thermal Management System Portfolio with Two New 250-Megawatt High-Density AI Factory Reference Designs Based on Nvidia DSX AI Factory Platform," 28 September 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/trane-technologies-expands-data-center-thermal-management-system-portfolio-with-two-new-250-megawatt-ce785addd980f525) 7. [NVIDIA press release via Yahoo Finance, "NVIDIA Introduces DSX POD AI Factories to Accelerate Europe's Infrastructure Deployment," 21 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-introduces-dsx-pod-ai-093400382.html) 8. [The Motley Fool via MSN, "Data centers don't just need power, they need cooling. Trane and Carrier sell it," 20 August 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/data-centers-don-t-just-need-power-they-need-cooling-trane-and-carrier-sell-it/ar-AA2aARyE) 9. [Trane Technologies, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 22 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001466258) --- Trane buys its own coil supplier the day Nvidia promises near-zero-water AI factories — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/trane-buys-its-own-coil-supplier-the-day-nvidia-promises-near-zero-water-ai-factories