Michigan vent maker sees orders jump to more than 1,000 units

AI data-center liquid cooling drives demand for decades-old vent designs

Armstrong International sold a water-bottle-sized air vent to oil refineries and other customers in batches that usually totaled dozens at a time. Then an order arrived early this year for more than 1,000. Then another. And another.

The Journal’s David Uberti writes that the 126-year-old Michigan business discovered it had stumbled into the supply chain of a market defined by speed and secrecy: AI data centers.

Millions of dollars’ worth of chips packed into data centers were running so hot that only liquid cooling systems could prevent them from getting fried, according to the Journal. Those systems need to expel excess air through vents like the ones Armstrong makes, designed during the Nixon administration, which cost a few hundred bucks apiece.

Armstrong had made its own attempts to break into data centers, but had gained little traction until now. The company still doesn’t know with 100% certainty where its air vents are going. That guessing game is a problem for businesses trying to find new customers and tailor designs and maintenance to their needs.

“Orders of this magnitude, you would think people are working on them for months… All of a sudden it’s like, ‘Nope, we got it. Let’s ship it,’” said Kyle Higginbotham, director of North American sales and marketing at Armstrong International.

The Journal’s Logistics Report also noted that intermodal containers and trailers carried on U.S. railroads in the week ended Nov. 7 rose 11% from a year earlier, according to the Association of American Railroads.

For background, the same Journal report, by Daniel Kiss and Daniel Michaels, said a series of attacks in the Black Sea has killed more people than strikes on shipping so far in the war between the U.S. and Iran, with maritime security company Ambrey counting over 300 attacks in the Black Sea and the Turkish Shipowners’ Association, MarineTraffic reports and local authorities putting the toll at more than 30 seafarers killed and more than 20 missing. The Journal reported that the violence has sharply reduced commercial activity there — ships entering via the Bosporus fell 41% in October from a year earlier, and transits in both directions dropped 38% in that period, according to Global Fishing Watch — and that the strikes are disrupting trade routes and turning up the heat on NATO.