{"title":"Carrier vs Johnson Controls: Cooling & thermal compared","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/compare/carrier-vs-johnson-controls","comparison":"Johnson Controls ranks 66 on the AI Infra 100 with a score of 88; Carrier ranks 83 with 86. Johnson Controls is ahead on leverage. Level on deployment, production, commercials, progress, technology, positioning and firepower. Carrier is based in Palm Beach Gardens, United States, Johnson Controls in Cork, Ireland. Carrier is named in 2 signals and Johnson Controls in 5.","companies":[{"name":"Carrier","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/companies/carrier","city":"Palm Beach Gardens","country":"United States","stage":null,"founded":null,"last_round":null,"positioning":"Carrier belongs in the incumbent set alongside Vertiv, Trane and Johnson Controls, and the numbers now justify a full row. QuantumLeap, launched 2025-02-06, is a chip-to-chiller suite: next-generation chillers delivering a 30 percent efficiency improvement, direct-to-chip liquid cooling CDUs for high-density AI racks, the Nlyte DCIM platform managing more than 300 data centers and over 1 million racks, Abound for predictive maintenance and Automated Logic for controls. Data center revenue reached approximately USD 1 billion in 2025 with guidance of USD 1.5 billion for 2026, on a data center backlog above USD 5 billion. Q1 2026: net sales USD 5.34 billion (up 2 percent), adjusted EPS USD 0.57 beat while GAAP EPS USD 0.28 missed, global commercial HVAC orders up 35 percent, and data center orders up more than 500 percent year over year. Carrier fills the two-phase gap by acquisition: on 2026-04-29 Carrier Ventures expanded its investment in ZutaCore (direct-to-chip waterless two-phase HyperCool), building on a 2025 investment, giving interoperable single and two-phase capability. The risk the company flags is concentration: data center demand is lumpy, and whether the 500 percent order growth reflects a small prior-year base is the first thing to check before treating momentum at 5 as durable.","assessed_in":{"domain":"AI Core","list":"AI Infra 100","rank":83,"score":86,"tier":"member","scores":{"gate_ne":["firepower"],"leverage":8,"position":8,"progress":10,"firepower":10,"commercial":10,"deployment":8,"production":8,"technology":8},"why":"Carrier supplies data-center thermal infrastructure, including QuantumLeap and interoperable single- and two-phase direct-to-chip liquid cooling integrated with traditional HVAC through intelligent controls.","segment":"Cooling & thermal","layer":"Power, cooling & thermal"},"signals_total":2,"facts_total":15},{"name":"Johnson Controls","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/companies/johnson-controls","city":"Cork","country":"Ireland","stage":null,"founded":null,"last_round":null,"positioning":"Johnson Controls is no longer a building-automation company with a data center side business. Data center revenue is a high-teens percentage of fiscal 2026 sales and the CFO has said it could reach roughly one-third of total company revenue within three to five years. Fiscal Q3 2026 organic sales rose 10 percent to USD 6.6 billion with Applied HVAC posting high-teens growth driven by data center cooling; adjusted segment EBITA margin widened 220 basis points to 19.8 percent; backlog reached a record USD 21 billion, up more than 30 percent, with Americas orders up 37 percent. The technical position rests on two things: NVIDIA certification for its cooling distribution units, with a pipeline above USD 1 billion and shipments beginning, plus a jointly developed AI-factory thermal reference guide; and an absorption chiller reference design the company says cuts cooling electrical demand by approximately 44 percent at a 1 gigawatt AI factory by converting waste heat into cooling, unlocking 97 megawatts of additional compute capacity, which changes site selection economics for hyperscalers. It released the YORK YK-HT two-stage economized centrifugal chiller and exited residential HVAC to focus the portfolio. Its relevance doubles because it led the Accelsius USD 65 million Series B on 2026-01-12, putting it on both sides of the two-phase versus single-phase question.","assessed_in":{"domain":"AI Core","list":"AI Infra 100","rank":66,"score":88,"tier":"member","scores":{"gate_ne":["firepower"],"leverage":10,"position":8,"progress":10,"firepower":10,"commercial":10,"deployment":8,"production":8,"technology":8},"why":"Johnson Controls supplies YORK chillers, absorption chillers, cooling distribution units and high-temperature heat pumps, including products designed for high-density AI data centers and industrial electrification.","segment":"Cooling & thermal","layer":"Power, cooling & thermal"},"signals_total":5,"facts_total":24}],"note":"Assessment by Frontier Tech Intelligence; facts and signals carry their sources."}