What began as a neighbourly relationship in 1999 has evolved into one of the data centre industry’ s most enduring strategic partnerships

Johnson Controls and NTT have spent 26 years growing together, pioneering sustainability initiatives and scaling thermal management solutions from single-site deployments to global operations worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The partnership’ s longevity speaks to what Jeffrey Jerwers, Account Executive at Johnson Controls, describes as a foundation of mutual benefit.

“ NTT has always been a great partner with JCI,” says Jeffrey.“ They’ ve valued partnerships as part of one of their key successes, and they’ ve always given us very long-term planning of their business goals. This vision has allowed us to increase our manufacturing, improve our supply chain and scale the products and services that we provide to them.”

This collaborative approach has enabled both companies to pursue what Jeffrey characterises as“ responsible growth” – expansion underpinned by strategic planning rather than opportunistic scaling. The results are evident in the relationship’ s scope: what started with two chillers in a single facility has expanded to support NTT’ s international footprint.

Central to the partnership’ s success has been NTT’ s position as a sustainability pioneer. In 2016, the operator made what Anthony Seiler, Global Director for Strategy and Go-to-market at Johnson Controls, calls“ a pretty bold decision to move away from water-cooled chillers and eliminate water evaporation completely.”

NTT became the first major colocation operator to deploy air-cooled chillers at scale, with JCI installing dozens of units in what proved to be an industry-defining move.“ We saw that early pioneering move spread like wildfire across the industry,” notes Anthony. The sustainability pivot, which began with test cases in 2011 before full implementation in 2016,