Vertiv Opens Manufacturing Facilities in Asia to Support AI Infrastructure Demand

Vertiv has opened a facility in Johor, Malaysia to meet the power needs of AI data centers. The move positions Vertiv strongly in the region and supports its role in AI infrastructure, as seen in the strong market reaction following news of significant South Korean investment in AI data centers.

VRT has opened a roughly 236,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Johor, Malaysia, to support rising demand for AI and high-density digital infrastructure across Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The plant makes Vertiv's CoolChip coolant distribution units used in liquid-cooled AI server racks, along with prefabricated power modules, power skids, and SmartRun systems the company says can cut on-site deployment time by up to 85% compared with traditional builds.

The facility has actually been operational since the first quarter of 2026, shipping units of Vertiv's XDU liquid-cooling line for several months ahead of this formal opening announcement. It is currently running phase one of a multi-phase ramp, with later phases adding a new liquid-cooling line and larger SmartRun production; full technical capacity is expected around the second or early third quarter of 2027. The site is expected to create hundreds of skilled manufacturing, engineering, and logistics jobs by 2027.

The Johor opening landed alongside a separate but related catalyst: South Korea's announcement of a state and corporate investment plan exceeding $1 trillion for semiconductor fabrication and AI data centers. Samsung and SK Hynix are planning roughly $518 billion for new chip fabs, while SK Group, GS Group, and Naver are earmarking about $356 billion for AI data centers . Vertiv stock jumped about 7% on June 30 in response, even though the company has no formal partnership with the three Korean investors; the connection runs through Vertiv's deep integration with Nvidia's data center architecture and Naver's own partnership with Nvidia .

Taken together, the two developments reinforce the same thesis: Vertiv's power and cooling infrastructure sits directly in the path of AI data center capex, whether that spending originates in Korea, elsewhere in Asia, or globally. The new Malaysia capacity gives Vertiv a regional manufacturing base to serve that demand locally rather than relying solely on production elsewhere, which could shorten lead times for Asian data center customers as buildouts accelerate.