Blackstone has agreed to acquire Flow Control Holdings (FCH), a US maker of highly engineered components for data centre liquid cooling, from Audax Private Equity. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, FCH supplies coolant distribution units, in-row manifolds, and secondary fluid networks to original equipment manufacturers and hyperscalers. As the latest generations of AI hardware run hotter, liquid cooling has become critical to managing energy use and chip efficiency, offering data centre operators a more efficient alternative to air cooling that also lowers emissions and improves power usage.

Blackstone is drawing on two of its strategies for the deal, combining funds from Blackstone Capital Partners and Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, the latter its vehicle for control-oriented energy investments. "We believe that FCH has enormous tailwinds for continued growth as the latest generations of high-performance AI infrastructure increasingly rely on liquid cooling technology for significantly improved energy and chip efficiency," said Bilal Khan, senior managing director, and Mark Zhu, managing director at Blackstone. They said the plan was to invest in the company's capacity expansion and "support unprecedented liquid cooling demand."

Audax backed FCH through 10 acquisitions and investments in new production and distribution capacity over its hold. "We view the FCH investment as a text-book example of Audax's ability to build strategic assets through disciplined execution of the Audax Value Agenda and Buy & Build approach," said Don Bramley, a partner at Audax. Blackstone manages over $1.3tn in assets, while its Energy Transition Partners platform has committed roughly $30bn of equity globally. Audax managed around $20bn as of July 2026.