ABB says data centre business booming, Q3 figures in line with forecasts

ZURICH, Oct 20 (Reuters) - ABB ABBN.S is continuing to see a boom in spending on data centres used to power artificial intelligence, the engineering group said on Tuesday, as it reported its latest earnings.

The Swiss company said its operational earnings before interest, tax and amortisation jumped 24% to $2.03 billion in the three months to the end of September, slightly ahead of analyst forecasts for $2.0 billion.

Revenue meanwhile rose 14% to $9.70 billion, slightly below forecasts of $9.74 billion in a company gathered consensus.

ABB, which makes electrification and automation products used by factories, ships and ports, has been seeing strong demand for products like power distribution and cooling systems used in data centres.

A surge in spending on AI and data centres is propping up the global economy, helping it withstand the energy shock from the Middle East war, the IMF said last week, although it said a reassessment of efficiency gains from adopting the technology could dent investment.

During the third quarter ABB said it had seen a triple digit increase in orders for data centre products, continuing the trend it saw during the second quarter.