AAON's Data Center Growth: Q2 2025 Earnings Insight & Innovation

🚀 AAON, Inc. powers strong data center market growth in Q2 2025 with BasX's advanced cooling solutions and strategic AI partnerships. 📈

"Data center"

Analysis of "Data center" Mentions in AAON, Inc.'s Q2 2025 Earnings Transcript

1. Overview and Market Positioning

AAON, Inc. highlights the data center market as a key growth driver, particularly through its BasX brand, which specializes in advanced cooling solutions tailored for data centers. The company emphasizes strong demand and active engagement with customers in this sector, especially for next-generation liquid cooling technologies.

"The BasX brand continued to demonstrate strength within the data center market in Q2. BasX branded data center sales were up 127% in Q2 and 269% year-to-date."

This rapid growth underscores the strategic importance of the data center segment to AAON’s overall business expansion.


2. Product and Technology Focus

AAON is actively developing and supplying customized thermal management solutions for data centers, including:

  • Liquid cooling systems (a rapidly evolving technology segment)
  • High-performance chillers for heat rejection
  • Airside solutions such as chilled water fan coil walls and CDUs (cooling distribution units)

The company is collaborating closely with customers to develop next-generation liquid cooling products, reflecting a strong R&D and customer partnership focus.

"We continue to have active engagement with that customer, not just in the current orders and follow-on orders, but also working with them actively to develop the next-generation liquid cooling solutions for their data centers."

"Year-to-date, liquid cooling equipment accounted for approximately 40% of total BasX branded data center sales, highlighting its increasing significance within our product portfolio."


3. Strategic Partnerships and AI Data Center Focus

AAON’s BasX brand has formed a strategic partnership with Applied Digital, a pure-play AI data center developer. This partnership is significant because it aligns AAON’s thermal management solutions with the high-performance and efficiency demands of AI infrastructure.

"Applied Digital, it is pretty much a pure-play AI data center developer... We already have orders for 2 of the 3 of those pieces, including high-performance chillers that are really important as we think about how we're going to manage high-efficiency heat rejection inside of these AI data centers."

This collaboration not only validates BasX’s technology but also positions AAON to capitalize on the growing AI data center market, which requires specialized cooling solutions due to high heat loads.


4. Capacity Expansion and Operational Priorities

AAON is investing in expanding manufacturing capacity to meet the growing demand from the data center market. The recent acquisition and ramp-up of the Memphis facility is a critical operational priority, expected to nearly double BasX’s manufacturing footprint.

"By year-end, this facility will significantly expand the capacity of BasX branded manufacturing by nearly doubling its square footage. At that point, we will be well positioned operationally to fully capitalize on the robust demand for the data center market."

The company acknowledges current capacity constraints but is actively addressing them to unlock full growth potential.


5. Financial and Backlog Performance
  • Data center sales showed strong year-over-year growth of 127% in the quarter.
  • The data center backlog remained flat sequentially but is described as healthy and reflective of strong ongoing booking activity.
  • The backlog is expected to grow as Memphis production capacity comes online.

"From a data center perspective... The overall top line sales were up year-over-year, 127% in the quarter... The activity and engagement has been at least, if not stronger in both July and August."

This indicates robust demand and a positive outlook for future revenue growth from this segment.


6. Challenges and Operational Efficiency

While the data center business is strong, AAON faces some operational challenges related to ERP system rollouts and production efficiency, particularly at other sites. However, the BasX branded production, which serves the data center market, has been less impacted and continues to perform well.

"For BasX branded production at this segment, the impact of the ERP implementation was considerably less... production performed relatively well and the backlog remains strong."


Summary

AAON, Inc. views the data center market as a strategic growth engine, driven primarily by its BasX brand’s advanced cooling solutions, including liquid cooling and thermal management systems tailored for AI and hyperscale data centers. The company is actively expanding manufacturing capacity (notably in Memphis) to meet strong demand and is engaged in strategic partnerships (e.g., Applied Digital) that position it well in the evolving AI data center space.

Financially, the data center segment is delivering exceptional sales growth (127% YoY in Q2) and a strong backlog, although capacity constraints currently limit full potential. Operational challenges related to ERP implementation have had limited impact on BasX production, which remains robust.

Overall, AAON’s messaging conveys confidence in the data center market’s long-term prospects and highlights ongoing investments in technology, capacity, and customer collaboration to sustain leadership in this high-growth segment.


Selected Relevant Quotes

"The BasX brand continued to demonstrate strength within the data center market in Q2. BasX branded data center sales were up 127% in Q2 and 269% year-to-date."

"We continue to have active engagement with that customer... working with them actively to develop the next-generation liquid cooling solutions for their data centers."

"Applied Digital, it is pretty much a pure-play AI data center developer... We already have orders for 2 of the 3 of those pieces, including high-performance chillers that are really important as we think about how we're going to manage high-efficiency heat rejection inside of these AI data centers."

"By year-end, this facility will significantly expand the capacity of BasX branded manufacturing by nearly doubling its square footage."

"From a data center perspective... The overall top line sales were up year-over-year, 127% in the quarter... The activity and engagement has been at least, if not stronger in both July and August."


This analysis reflects AAON’s strong strategic focus on the data center market as a key driver of growth, supported by product innovation, capacity expansion, and targeted partnerships.

Disclaimer: The output generated by dafinchi.ai, a Large Language Model (LLM), may contain inaccuracies or "hallucinations." Users should independently verify the accuracy of any mathematical calculations, numerical data, and associated units, as well as the credibility of any sources cited. The developers and providers of dafinchi.ai cannot be held liable for any inaccuracies or decisions made based on the LLM's output.