Power, cooling, and physical delivery covers the facility layer that makes AI compute usable: power rooms, switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies, busway, transformers, cooling equipment, enclosures, cable paths, and the mechanical and electrical labor that installs them. These pieces sit between the utility interconnection and the AI rack. They move electricity from the grid into servers, remove heat from dense compute, protect uptime, and turn a planned data hall into accepted capacity. The investment mechanism is backlog conversion: orders, capacity reservations, and project awards must become shipped equipment, accepted projects, service revenue, margin, receivables collection, and free cash flow. VRT and ETN have the clearest scaled equipment routes, FIX adds direct building-level mechanical, electrical, and plumbing delivery, MOD and AAON supply thermal capacity, POWL and GEV carry electrical and grid bottleneck evidence, and the contractor rows need clean margins and working-capital proof before backlog quality can be treated as settled.
What the stack is: the physical layer that powers, cools, protects, houses, and installs AI data-center capacity after chips, servers, and networking have been ordered.
What it does: utility power is stepped down, switched, conditioned, backed up, distributed to racks, and monitored; heat is moved through air handlers, chillers, liquid-cooling loops, heat exchangers, pumps, coils, and controls; contractors install and commission the work.
Main pieces: transformers, switchgear, medium-voltage equipment, E-houses, busway, UPS systems, power distribution units, thermal-management units, chillers, air handlers, enclosures, cable management, modular power rooms, field labor, project controls, and lifecycle service.
Where it sits: at the utility interconnect, substation, power room, mechanical yard, data hall, rack row, roof, enclosure, prefabricated module, and job site.
How AI infrastructure uses it: hyperscalers and colocation customers cannot energize or accept GPU racks until power, cooling, commissioning, and grid constraints clear. The node tracks whether that bottleneck becomes supplier revenue, margin, and cash rather than only larger order books.
Terms used later: backlog means contracted or expected work not yet recognized as revenue; RPO means remaining performance obligations; MEP means mechanical, electrical, and plumbing construction; UPS means uninterruptible power supply; E-house means a prefabricated electrical room; free cash flow means operating cash flow left after capital expenditures.
Report boundary: this node is a tactical report layer. Durable research, claim IDs, raw source registries, and sector thesis maintenance stay in the linked knowledge pages. Price and volume context comes from read-only discovery daily_ohlc; local rows now run through 2026-06-12, while static weekly setup thresholds on this page still use the completed week ending 2026-06-05 and must be refreshed before use as current trading evidence.
Current Setup
Physical delivery conversionAI budgets have reached power, cooling, switchgear, and field labor.
The investable test is whether backlog converts into shipments, accepted projects, margin, working-capital release, and free cash flow while current local chart data has moved beyond the static setup table.
Reported proofOrders and revenue are visible.
VRT, ETN, FIX, MOD, POWL, GEV, PWR, EME, NVT, AAON, HUBB, and STRL all have filed backlog, RPO, revenue, or segment evidence.
Conversion gateCash and margin decide quality.
Receivables, project estimates, customer deposits, fixed-price work, capacity ramp costs, and tariff or material pressure control the payoff.
Primary constraintStatic chart thresholds are stale.
Local daily_ohlc now runs through 2026-06-12; the old 2026-06-05 setup levels need a weekly refresh.
Buyer budgetHyperscaler + colocation
Stack deliveredPower, thermal, MEP
Accounting proofRevenue, margin, FCF
Live watchBacklog, DSO, capex
AI compute is not usable until a site has power rooms, switchgear, UPS, thermal systems, enclosures, cable management, field labor, grid interconnection, and customer acceptance. This node tests whether the AI capex cycle reaches that physical layer and whether suppliers collect economics through product shipments, service attach, project margins, backlog burn, receivables collection, and free cash flow rather than only through order headlines.
The current source stack shows direct conversion evidence across several routes. VRT reported Q1 2026 sales up 30.1%. ETN reported Q1 2026 sales of $7.451B and backlog near $22.8B. FIX reported Q1 revenue of $2.865B, backlog of $12.45B, and technology customers at 56.4% of revenue. MOD reported Q4 FY2026 net sales of $954.4M and a more than $4B Airedale capacity agreement through 2029 with a $165M upfront customer payment. POWL reported Q2 FY2026 revenue of $296.6M, $1.8B of backlog, and a post-quarter data-center order above $400M. The next proof point is backlog delivery with margin, working capital, and cash conversion intact.
The setup weakens if data-center customers defer starts, utility interconnection slips, capacity additions outrun demand, or fixed-price projects absorb tariffs, metals, freight, labor, and installation costs. ETN still needs Electrical Americas margin recovery after Q1 compression, EME needs receivable drag to reverse, NVT and AAON need working-capital and capex proof, STRL needs signed-award and CEC integration evidence, and HUBB still has thinner data-center-specific disclosure than the higher-ranked electrical rows. Static setup thresholds are stale because local daily rows now run through 2026-06-12 while the old weekly labels use 2026-06-05.
The basket order is inherited from the parent theme's Physical delivery group and hand-ranked by source-backed node economics before chart timing. Market caps use local discovery instruments.market_cap queried on 2026-06-13. Nasdaq earnings pages were checked on 2026-06-13 for every ticker and did not expose a current next earnings date, so all cards mark the field as Not confirmed.
Basket
The ranked basket favors direct data-center power, thermal, electrical, switchgear, grid, and MEP conversion evidence, then adjusts for margin, working-capital, backlog-quality, and valuation risk. The core order is VRT, ETN, FIX, MOD, POWL, GEV, PWR, EME, NVT, AAON, HUBB, and STRL. Watch and creative-tail names stay outside the ranked basket until source support, disclosure, or parent-theme ownership improves.
Scaled AI data-center power, thermal, UPS, modular infrastructure, controls, and service supplier.
Market cap$130.6B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$2.650B
Role in stack
VRT sells power management, thermal management, UPS, modular infrastructure, controls, and lifecycle service to hyperscale, AI/HPC, colocation, telecom, and industrial buyers.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 net sales were product-heavy: product sales were $2.1358B and services were $513.7M; Americas was the largest region at $1.8144B.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 net sales were $2.6495B, sourced from the VRT security lane and Vertiv Q1 2026 release.
Large electrical power-management route with data-center, grid, building, OEM, and aerospace backlog.
Market cap$155.9B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$7.451B
Role in stack
ETN supplies electrical distribution, power management, and Boyd Thermal-adjacent systems used in data centers, grids, buildings, OEMs, and industrial sites.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 sales were led by Electrical Americas at $3.600B and Electrical Global at $1.945B; Aerospace added $1.139B and Mobility added $766M.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 sales were $7.451B, sourced from the ETN security lane and Eaton Q1 2026 release.
Building-level mechanical, electrical, plumbing, modular, and service contractor route.
Market cap$68.7B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$2.865B
Role in stack
FIX installs and services the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, modular, and controls work that lets hyperscale and technology facilities accept capacity.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 revenue was 56.4% technology customers and 74.5% new construction; mechanical was $2.061B and electrical was $804.7M.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $2.865B, sourced from the FIX security lane and Q1 2026 filing/release route.
Direct data-center thermal-capacity route through Airedale, chillers, and cooling systems.
Market cap$14.4B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$954.4M
Role in stack
MOD sells data-center cooling equipment and thermal systems; customer capacity reservations become economics only when products ship, are accepted, and margins hold.
Revenue mix
Q4 FY2026 Climate Solutions sales were $665.9M and Performance Technologies sales were $294.0M; Data Centers sales inside Climate Solutions rose 158% year over year.
Latest qtr revenue
Q4 FY2026 net sales were $954.4M for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, sourced from Modine's May 26, 2026 Q4 FY2026 release.
Engineered switchgear, E-house, electrical-room, and power-control route with a large data-center award.
Market cap$11.3B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$296.6M
Role in stack
POWL supplies medium-voltage electrical systems, switchgear, E-houses, and power-control equipment to industrial, utility, and data-center buyers.
Revenue mix
Q2 FY2026 revenue included oil and gas, electric utility, commercial and other industrial, petrochemical, light rail, and other markets; backlog was $1.8B.
Latest qtr revenue
Q2 FY2026 revenue was $296.6M, sourced from the POWL security lane and Powell Q2 FY2026 release.
Upstream power, electrification, transformer, and grid-equipment bottleneck route.
Market cap$279.5B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$9.3B
Role in stack
GEV supplies gas power, services, grid equipment, transformers, electrification, automation, and storage needed before large AI load can be served reliably.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 revenue was led by Power at $4.971B and Electrification at $2.959B; Wind contributed $1.432B but remained a loss drag.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $9.3B, sourced from the GEV security lane and GE Vernova Q1 2026 release.
Utility and electric-infrastructure field-delivery route for transmission, substations, and large-load work.
Market cap$111.8B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$7.875B
Role in stack
PWR builds transmission, distribution, substations, interconnection, and related electric infrastructure for utilities, energy customers, and large-load projects.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 Electric revenue was $6.469B, or 82.1% of total revenue; Underground and Infrastructure revenue was $1.406B.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $7.874787B, sourced from the PWR security lane and Quanta Q1 2026 release.
Large electrical and mechanical construction route for mission-critical technical facilities.
Market cap$41.0B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$4.63B
Role in stack
EME turns data-center, network, water, healthcare, and institutional demand into electrical, mechanical, building-services, and industrial-services projects.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 revenue was led by U.S. mechanical construction at $2.03B and U.S. electrical construction at $1.45B, with building services and industrial services smaller.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $4.63B, sourced from the EME security lane and EMCOR Q1 2026 release.
Systems protection, enclosures, power/data infrastructure, and cable-management supplier.
Market cap$27.5B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$1.242B
Role in stack
NVT sells systems protection, enclosures, cable management, electrical connections, and power/data infrastructure used in data-center, utility, infrastructure, and industrial builds.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 Systems Protection sales were $894.8M, about 72% of revenue; Electrical Connections sales were $347.2M.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 net sales were $1.242B, sourced from the NVT security lane and nVent Q1 2026 release.
Utility T&D, high-voltage grid gear, and electrical products supplier with thinner data-center disclosure.
Market cap$26.0B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$1.517B
Role in stack
HUBB sells grid, utility T&D, high-voltage transmission, electrical products, and data-center/light-industrial equipment that sit around the power-delivery chain.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 Utility Solutions sales were $948.9M, about 62.6% of sales; Electrical Solutions sales were $567.8M.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 net sales were $1.5167B, sourced from the HUBB security lane and Hubbell Q1 2026 release.
Site, civil, electrical, mechanical, and mission-critical infrastructure tail in the core basket.
Market cap$25.9B
Next earningsNot confirmed
Latest qtr revenue$825.7M
Role in stack
STRL performs site, civil, electrical, mechanical, and mission-critical infrastructure work for data-center, semiconductor, manufacturing, transportation, and building customers.
Revenue mix
Q1 2026 E-Infrastructure was $597.7M, about 72% of revenue; Transportation was $132.9M and Building was $95.1M.
Latest qtr revenue
Q1 2026 revenue was $825.7M, sourced from the STRL security lane and Sterling Q1 2026 release.
Market-cap metrics use read-only local discovery instruments.market_cap; next-earnings metrics are marked Not confirmed because Nasdaq earnings pages for VRT, ETN, FIX, MOD, POWL, GEV, PWR, EME, NVT, AAON, HUBB, and STRL returned no current date on 2026-06-13. Revenue metrics use the latest reported quarterly total revenue where available; MOD uses Q4 FY2026 because the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026.
What Confirms Or Weakens
AreaWhat confirmsWhat weakens or invalidatesWatch next
01Node thesisPhysical layer converts
What confirms
AI data-center spending reaches shippable power, thermal, switchgear, grid equipment, protection, MEP, and site-delivery orders for the ranked basket.
What weakens or invalidates
Capex budgets rise while active megawatt delivery, power-room acceptance, cooling capacity, electrical gear shipment, interconnection, project margin, or service attach slips.
Watch next
VRT orders
ETN margins
FIX tech revenue
MOD Airedale
POWL data-center order
02Economics and recovery mechanismRevenue becomes cash
What confirms
Backlog, RPO, and capacity reservations become shipped equipment, accepted projects, segment margin, service attach, operating cash flow, and free cash flow.
What weakens or invalidates
Order disclosure weakens, customer deposits reverse before delivery, liquid-cooling ramps cost more than planned, or tariffs, metals, freight, labor, and components compress margin.
Watch next
VRT cash quality
MOD segment recast
POWL backlog burn
NVT working capital
HUBB price/cost
03Customer and demand qualityOrders are usable
What confirms
Hyperscale, colocation, utility, industrial, and technology customers keep funded projects moving into delivery schedules and accepted capacity.
What weakens or invalidates
Large customers defer starts, renegotiate capacity reservations, slow interconnection work, cancel awards, or shift supplier economics through price pressure.
Watch next
Customer concentration
Large awards
Interconnection
Capacity starts
04Funding and project qualityConstruction remains financeable
What confirms
FIX, PWR, EME, and STRL convert backlog into revenue with stable project margins, DSO control, receivables collection, and no major estimate charges.
05Policy and supply constraintInputs stay available
What confirms
Grid access, permitting, supplier capacity, tariffs, labor availability, and working capital remain manageable as larger power and cooling projects ship.
What weakens or invalidates
Higher rates, customer financing stress, power availability, permitting delay, equipment shortages, tariff actions, or project-capital needs push starts or weaken cash conversion.
Watch next
Utility interconnects
Tariff costs
Inventory
Capex
Revolver use
06Stale conditionRefresh before trading
What confirms
Discovery daily_ohlc has stored rows through 2026-06-12 for all 12 ranked tickers, and right-rail charts should fetch from the API route rather than embedded HTML data.
What weakens or invalidates
The static setup thresholds still use the completed week ending 2026-06-05, so any current trading use requires refreshed weekly OHLC, EMA, and volume labels.
Watch next
Weekly refresh
API availability
Lineage caveat
New earnings dates
Source Trail
Route
Use it for
Primary links
AI capex owner
Parent theme boundaries, value-chain route, and why physical delivery is a capex-to-cash conversion point.
Security lanes and bounded company-source checks were used for latest reported quarterly revenue, revenue mix, order, backlog, capacity-agreement, and cash-conversion evidence.
Read-only local DuckDB checks covered ticker coverage, market caps, weekly OHLC inputs, EMAs, volume, chart freshness, and lineage caveats. Discovery supports price/setup context only and does not prove business causality.
daily_ohlc stored rows for all 12 ranked tickers through 2026-06-12; weekly static setup labels still use the completed week ending 2026-06-05; 20W/100W EMA assumptions use full weekly history before visible-window clipping; selected-security charts use a 3-year weekly window.
Earnings date checks
Next-earnings fields were checked with bounded Nasdaq earnings-page searches on 2026-06-13. No current confirmed or estimated next earnings date was exposed for the ranked basket, so each card uses Not confirmed.
Read-only DuckDB coverage query showed VRT, ETN, FIX, MOD, POWL, GEV, PWR, EME, NVT, AAON, HUBB, and STRL all have local daily_ohlc rows through 2026-06-12. GEV has shorter public history from 2024-04-02; the other ranked tickers have local rows back to 2021.
Read-only DuckDB market-cap query used instruments.market_cap on 2026-06-13. The table supplied values for every ranked ticker but last_updated_utc was null, so market caps should be treated as local snapshot fields rather than source-timestamped vendor facts.
Latest-quarter revenue periods: VRT, ETN, FIX, GEV, PWR, EME, NVT, AAON, HUBB, and STRL use Q1 2026; POWL uses Q2 FY2026; MOD uses Q4 FY2026 for the quarter ended March 31, 2026.
Discovery lineage remains imperfect: canonical daily_ohlc rows now run through 2026-06-12, while recent lineage rows still show provider source_freshness mostly at 2026-05-08. Treat lineage freshness as unresolved until the discovery store reconciles run metadata.
Right-rail chart metadata uses report API assumptions: weekly bars from daily_ohlc, 20-week and 100-week EMAs from full weekly history, weekly volume with a 20-week average volume line, and a 3-year visible horizon. If an API server is not running, static HTML still renders and the selected-security panel shows its empty state.
No node-family nodes/node-data.json manifest was present for this theme, and no generator owner was found for this node. Shared parent, sitemap, and manifest files were intentionally left untouched by this implementation worker.