SLB, the Houston-based oilfield services giant, announced Monday it will acquire German cooling equipment maker Kelvion from Apollo Global Management for $3.4 billion in cash, plus the assumption of roughly $700 million of Kelvion's debt. The deal marks one of the clearest signals yet that a company built on drilling and pumping technology is racing to become a major player in the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence.
SLB will acquire funds advised by Triton that hold a minority interest in Kelvion, while Apollo Global holds the majority stake in the company, according to Reuters. SLB describes itself as an oilfield services company, while Kelvion is a cooling equipment maker whose technology SLB says will strengthen its data center solutions business. The acquisition, reported by Reuters journalist Vallari Srivastava and edited by Jonathan Ananda, is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
Kelvion brings serious financial heft to the table. The company is projected to generate between $2.3 billion and $2.4 billion in revenue and $350 million to $400 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2026, according to a statement carried by Investing.com. Data center cooling equipment already makes up Kelvion's largest and fastest-growing end market, worth $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion of that total.
A Deal Priced for Growth, Not Just Assets
The $3.4 billion price tag values Kelvion at roughly 11 times its estimated 2026 EBITDA before accounting for synergies, or 8.5 times once projected synergies are factored in, per the same Investing.com report. SLB is targeting $120 million in annual run-rate EBITDA synergies within three years of closing. Once the transaction is complete, SLB and Kelvion together expect to generate more than $2 billion in pro-forma data center revenue in 2026 alone.
Those numbers feed into a much larger ambition: SLB is targeting $4.5 billion to $5 billion in data center revenue and $700 million to $800 million in adjusted EBITDA by 2028, the report notes. Rapid AI adoption is driving demand for power and cooling infrastructure across the industry, and SLB plans to expand its data center business through the Kelvion acquisition to meet that demand with what it calls critical thermal management technologies.
SLB Was Already Growing Fast Before This Deal
SLB's internal Data Center Solutions business was not starting from scratch. That unit logged 121% revenue growth in 2025 and an 80% year-over-year increase in the second quarter of 2026, according to a filing with the SEC. Global cumulative infrastructure deliveries from that business are projected to surpass 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026.
Much of that organic growth has been built domestically. In December 2025, SLB announced a $30 million investment to double the footprint of its technology facility in Shreveport, Louisiana, expanding it to 3.1 million square feet to create what it calls North America's largest dedicated data center manufacturing hub, according to Louisiana Economic Development. SLB also expanded its technology collaboration with NVIDIA in March 2026, serving as the modular design partner for NVIDIA DSX AI factories and using offsite component manufacturing to speed up deployment timelines.
Betting on Off-Grid Power to Solve Cooling's Energy Problem
Cooling is only half the equation for hyperscale AI clusters, which is why SLB formed a strategic alliance with Liberty Energy in July 2026 to pair modular infrastructure with natural gas-fired, behind-the-meter power generation for off-grid data centers. That partnership reflects a broader pattern of oilfield technology firms teaming up to solve the twin bottlenecks of grid capacity and heat that increasingly define AI infrastructure buildouts. The global data center cooling market itself is projected to grow from roughly $21 billion in 2026 to more than $50 billion by 2034, according to a report from Fortune Business Insights, as AI server rack power densities push toward 100 kilowatts and demand more advanced liquid and heat exchange systems.
Kelvion itself has changed hands more than once in recent years. Apollo Global completed its majority acquisition of the German company from Triton Partners in January 2026, continuing an ownership lineage that traces back to when Triton acquired and rebranded GEA Group's heat exchanger business in 2014, according to EuropaWire. This deal now hands full control to SLB roughly a year and a half after Apollo took the reins.
Part of a Bigger Portfolio Shuffle for SLB
The Kelvion purchase is not SLB's first major move to diversify beyond traditional oilfield work. It follows the company's acquisition of ChampionX Corporation in July 2025, which contributed $1.5 billion in revenue in 2025, while SLB has maintained its target net debt-to-EBITDA ratio under 1.5 times even as it takes on major acquisitions, per the same SEC filing.
The Kelvion deal arrives as data center growth continues to generate friction at the local level far from SLB's Houston headquarters. Hoodline has previously reported on fears over a 79-megawatt data center in Jacinto City, Texas, as well as a push in San Antonio for a construction moratorium and a Salt Lake City council vote restricting new facilities over water use concerns. Those local fights underscore the same power and cooling strains that SLB is now betting billions of dollars it can help solve.
