Blackstone to Acquire Data Center Liquid Cooling Specialist Flow Control Holdings

Blackstone announced on September 10, 2026 a definitive agreement to acquire Flow Control Holdings (FCH), a leading U.S. provider of highly engineered flow control solutions and components for data center liquid cooling, from Audax Private Equity.

Deal Structure

• Deal terms were not publicly disclosed
• Audax Private Equity will retain a minority equity stake in FCH following the transaction
• The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026

Why Liquid Cooling, Why Now

The acquisition represents Blackstone's expansion into the liquid-cooling supply chain as AI infrastructure demand drives a broader industry shift from traditional air cooling toward liquid cooling for high-density data center racks — a shift necessitated by the extreme power density and heat output of modern AI accelerator hardware, which air cooling alone increasingly cannot handle economically at scale.

Part of a Broader Private Equity Push Into AI Infrastructure Supply Chains

This deal is one of several recent private equity moves targeting the physical infrastructure layer underneath AI data centers — power, cooling, and specialized components — rather than the AI software or model layer itself, reflecting a view that picks-and-shovels infrastructure suppliers carry a more predictable, less winner-take-all risk profile than betting on which AI model or cloud provider ultimately wins the largest market share.

What This Means for Data Center Operators

Continued consolidation and institutional capital flowing into specialized liquid-cooling component suppliers is a specific signal that liquid cooling is transitioning from a niche, high-density-only solution to a mainstream requirement for next-generation AI data centers — organizations planning multi-year data center infrastructure roadmaps should expect liquid cooling to become the default assumption rather than an exception reserved for the highest-density racks.