施耐德电气的市值在过去四年里翻了一番多，这得益于人工智能热潮推动了对数据中心电力和冷却基础设施的前所未有的需求。如今，这家法国跨国企业正利用其好运，通过以 226 亿美元收购美国工业软件公司 PTC，巩固其作为工业电力和数据中心基础设施关键供应商的地位。
Schneider Electric's market cap has more than doubled in the past four years as the AI boom has driven unprecedented demand for datacenter power and cooling infrastructure. Now the French multinational is cashing in on its good fortunes to cement its place as a key provider of industrial power and datacenter infrastructure with the $22.6 billion acquisition of American industrial software company PTC.
PTC 成立于 1985 年，凭借开发计算机辅助设计软件以及工业产品和应用的生命周期管理工具而声名鹊起。这笔全现金交易于周一宣布，使施耐德电气处于有利位置，可从用于大规模训练和服务 AI 模型的数据中心激增中获益。
Founded in 1985, PTC made a name for itself developing software for computer-aided design, plus lifecycle management tools for industrial products and applications. The all-cash deal, announced on Monday, positions Schneider Electric to capitalize on the proliferation of datacenters used to train and serve AI models at scale.
自 2022 年底 ChatGPT 引发 AI 军备竞赛以来，数据中心的设计和电力需求发生了巨大变化。40 千瓦风冷机架已让位于 250 千瓦液冷系统，后者需要更高密度的电力输送和热管理系统，且所有这些都需要协同工作。
Since ChatGPT kicked off the AI arms race in late 2022, datacenter design and power requirements have changed considerably. Forty-kilowatt air-cooled racks have given way to 250kW liquid-cooled systems that need much denser power delivery and thermal management systems, all of which need to work together.
鉴于数据中心部署面临的日益复杂的局面和供应链挑战，施耐德电气进行了多项战略收购，扩大了其在“比特仓”（数据中心俗称）开发中的角色。2024 年底，在英伟达发布其首款全液冷机架设计不久后，施耐德电气投资约 8.5 亿美元收购了 Motivair 75% 的股份。Motivair 是冷板、机架歧管、冷却液分配单元 (CDU) 和后门热交换器的主要生产商之一，这些设备对于液冷服务器的广泛采用至关重要。预计施耐德电气将于 2028 年某个时候收购 Motivair 剩余股份。
In light of the growing complexity and supply chain challenges facing datacenter deployments, Schneider has made several strategic acquisitions which expanded its role in bit barn development. In late 2024, not long after Nvidia unveiled its first all-liquid-cooled rack designs, Schneider invested roughly $850 million on a 75 percent stake in Motivair, one of the leading producers of cold plates, rack manifolds, coolant distribution units (CDUs) and rear-door heat exchangers required to support the widespread adoption of liquid-cooled servers. The company is expected to acquire the remainder of Motivair sometime in 2028.
随着施耐德电气在数据中心中的角色日益增大，其设备用户需要管理的产品在其生命周期内也越来越多。收购 PTC 扩展了施耐德电气的生命周期管理产品，并为其产品组合引入了关键的设计能力。PTC 并非施耐德电气今年唯一的以数据中心为中心的收购。
As Schneider's role in the datacenter has grown, users of its kit have more products to manage across their lifecycles. Buying PTC expands Schneider's lifecycle management offerings and introduces key design capabilities to its offerings. PTC isn't Schneider's only datacenter-centric acquisition this year.
今年6月，该公司斥资31亿美元收购了工业数据运营供应商Cognite。周一，施耐德电气CEO Olivier Blum 在与投资者交流时表示，拥有PTC和Cognite将使公司能够在电力系统开发早期注入软件定义的自动化，从而提高其效率。数据中心是施耐德电气的初步目标之一。根据其对投资者讲话的记录，Blum表示：“我们认为，在设计阶段，能够帮助客户同时设计产品、机器、流程和能源系统至关重要。这就是我们将CAD工程视为投资组合中非常关键一环的原因。”
Back in June, the company paid $3.1bn for industrial data operations vendor Cognite. Speaking to investors on Monday, Schneider CEO Olivier Blum suggested that owning PTC and Cognite would enable the company to inject software-defined automation into power systems early in their development, improving their efficiency in the process. Datacenters are one of Schneider's initial targets. "We believe that at the design stage, it is super important that you can help your customer to design both product, machine, processes and energy system. This is where we see CAD engineering as a very critical part of the portfolio," Blum said, according to a transcript of his remarks to investors.
当然，这假设施耐德电气在过程中不会遇到任何监管障碍。这笔交易是施耐德电气有史以来最大的一笔，预计要到明年晚些时候才能完成。®
That's assuming of course that Schneider doesn't run into any regulatory hurdles along the way. The deal, Schneider's largest ever, isn't expected to close until late next year. ®