MW This oil company is spending $14 billion to be part of the AI data-center business

By Steve Gelsi

Oil-services giant muscled out Flowserve, which had a merger agreement with Chart Industries, by submitting a cash bid that Chart couldn't refuse

Oil-services giant Baker Hughes Co. got its start in the drill-bit manufacturing business for Texas oil rigs. Now it's pushing further into the data-center business as another example of an old-line industry company looking to take part in the new world of artificial intelligence.

Baker Hughes (BKR) said Tuesday that data centers offer a way to grow its profits going forward, as it plunked down $210 a share in cash for Chart Industries Inc. $(GTLS)$ in a deal that implies a market capitalization for the target of $9.6 billion. Including debt, the deal would have an enterprise value of $13.6 billion.

Chart Industries' stock powered up 15.6% in afternoon trading, while Baker Hughes' stock fell 1.7%.

It's a large bet even for Baker Hughes, the Houston-based oilfield products, services and digital solutions company with a market capitalization of just under $46 billion. But the company thinks it's worth it due to Chart's expertise in heat transfer and cryogenics for data centers and other industrial uses.

Baker Hughes said data centers are "one of the most compelling opportunities" of the deal.

"Baker Hughes provides turbines that deliver distributed power generation, while Chart supplies industrial chillers that help reject the heat from advanced compute environments," said Ganesh Ramaswamy, executive vice president of industrial and energy technology for Baker Hughes. Chart also handles cryogenic tanks for cooling data centers.

The combination of Baker Hughes and Chart Industries, "positions us to deliver differentiated high-efficiency infrastructure solutions for one of the fastest-growing and most energy intensive sectors of the economy," he said.

Baker Hughes stepped in with its offer, after Flowserve Corp. (FLS) and Chart Industries had announced on June 4 an all-stock merger. At that time, the deal called for Chart shareholders to receive $159.90 worth of Flowserve stock for each Chart share they owned. As of Monday's closing prices, the value Chart shareholders would receive would have increased to $173.63, but that was still well below Baker Hughes' per-share offer.

Flowserve, with a current market cap of $7.3 billion, said Tuesday it opted not to raise its offer to top the price offered by Baker Hughes and withdrew from the contest with a $266 million merger termination payment in its pocket.

In June, Constellation Energy Corp. $(CEG.UK)$ had announced a 20-year power-purchase deal with Meta Platforms Inc. $(META)$, as an example of major AI players seeking more electricity to power their computers.

Meanwhile, independent power producer Elementl Power is teaming up with Alphabet Inc.'s $(GOOG.UK)$ $(GOOGL)$ Google to work with utility and regulated power partners on data-center power projects.

Data centers continue to attract institutional capital as an infrastructure play to support AI, which requires more computing power and chips than older systems.

Also read: Google is making another bet on nuclear energy as it steps up its AI efforts

-Steve Gelsi

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July 29, 2025 15:51 ET (19:51 GMT)

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