3C and Datalec merge in data centre cooling deal

3C, a liquid-cooling company founded by former CoolIT Systems chief executive Steve Walton, has merged with London-based Datalec Precision Installations to form 3C Datalec, a data centre infrastructure company that forecasts more than US$400 million in revenue this year.

The merger was announced Oct. 14, according to the companies’ release as reported by BetaKit and BeBeez. Financial terms were not disclosed. Walton will be chief executive of the combined company, and Datalec’s co-founders, Danny Keeper and Stuart Richmond, stay on as group directors. Datalec’s headquarters remain in London.

The company said it has about 1,000 team members and active projects in 16 countries, totalling hundreds of megawatts. Its customers include four of the five largest hyperscalers, more than 25 colocation providers, so-called neoclouds and enterprises, according to the announcement. Datalec, founded in 2012, is described on its website as a data centre engineering specialist.

The deal brings new backing from Longbow Capital, a Canadian investor, along with S2G Investments, Apogem Capital and QIC. Apogem is a subsidiary of New York Life.

Walton said rack densities have outgrown air cooling. “Liquid cooling is no longer optional,” he said. He told BetaKit the hard part now is making cooling, power, construction and operations work as one system. Matthew Cunning, a director at Longbow Capital, said the firm is backing 3C Datalec to become “the partner of choice for AI-ready infrastructure.”

The company organizes its work in three parts: design and engineering, installation (including liquid cooling, mechanical and electrical work, and manufacturing), and commissioning, operations and maintenance after a site is built.

For Canadian readers, the Alberta link is the main point. 3C Datalec plans to open facilities in Calgary, Austin, Texas, and Warsaw, Poland, and to hire about 200 engineers over the next 12 months. The company did not say how many of those jobs would be in Calgary.

Walton previously led CoolIT Systems, the Calgary cooling maker. BetaKit has reported that Minnesota-based Ecolab agreed in March to buy CoolIT for US$4.75 billion. Walton left CoolIT in 2024, according to BetaKit.

The merger arrives as Canadian governments and companies push to build AI computing capacity at home. Ottawa recently added $500 million to a regional AI program, and a Vancouver data summit this week looked at the West’s AI infrastructure build-out. Canadian AI developer Cohere, meanwhile, is expanding into cybersecurity. Cooling is a growing cost and constraint for the data centres that all of that demand depends on.

The forecast revenue and project figures are company claims and have not been independently verified.

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Sources: company announcement as reported by BetaKit and BeBeez.