ABB agreed to acquire IPEC, a UK-based specialist in electrical diagnostics, strengthening its monitoring and predictive maintenance capabilities for data centers and other mission-critical environments. The deal targets industries where electrical failures trigger costly downtime, including hyperscale and enterprise data centers, utilities, airports, healthcare facilities, and manufacturing sites. ABB expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2026; the companies did not disclose financial terms.
IPEC brings more than three decades of expertise in partial discharge detection—small electrical discharges that indicate early insulation failure and account for over 80 percent of electrical asset breakdowns before unplanned outages. Its platforms provide continuous monitoring of electrical infrastructure, with systems capable of tracking up to 128 connection points in parallel. IPEC’s proprietary DeCIFer algorithm analyzes sensor data to flag emerging risks before failures occur, allowing operators to schedule maintenance proactively rather than respond after outages.
ABB plans to integrate IPEC’s technology into its Electrification Service portfolio, extending its predictive maintenance offerings for customers facing rising power density, uptime requirements, and energy constraints. The company said the expanded portfolio can help reduce unplanned downtime by up to 90 percent, cut maintenance costs by as much as 85 percent, and extend the operating life of electrical assets. IPEC, headquartered in Manchester with 70 employees across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, has seen data centers become its largest and fastest-growing market, particularly in North America.
- Acquisition target: IPEC, founded in 1995, focused on advanced electrical diagnostics and partial discharge monitoring
- Markets served: Data centers, utilities, airports, healthcare, manufacturing, and other critical infrastructure
- Core capability: Continuous monitoring and AI-assisted analytics to predict electrical equipment failures
- Scale: Monitoring platforms track up to 128 electrical connection points simultaneously
- Strategic fit: Complements ABB Electrification Service predictive maintenance and asset management portfolio
- Timing: Transaction expected to close in Q1 2026; financial terms not disclosed
“Across critical industries, the cost of downtime is staggering, from multi-million-dollar revenue losses in data centers to the safety and reliability risks facing utilities and hospitals,” said Stuart Thompson, Division President, ABB Electrification Service. “This acquisition gives our customers the diagnostic intelligence they need to prevent failures before they happen.”
🌐 Analysis
ABB’s move underscores how power reliability and electrical health monitoring now rank alongside cooling and networking as top priorities for data center operators facing higher rack densities and tighter uptime SLAs. Competitors across the electrical and industrial automation sector continue to expand digital service portfolios, but ABB’s focus on partial discharge diagnostics directly targets one of the most common root causes of electrical failures, positioning the company to capture more service revenue as data center operators shift toward predictive, data-driven operations.
