Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) saw its shares jump after reporting strong fourth-quarter 2025 results and issuing optimistic guidance for 2026, highlighting continued investor enthusiasm for ‘pick-and-shovel’ beneficiaries of AI data-center buildouts.

### What moved the stock

- The company’s results and forward outlook pushed shares sharply higher in the session following the report (the article notes a large double-digit move).

### What Vertiv does (and why AI matters)

Vertiv sells critical infrastructure used in data centers—cooling, power management/energy storage, and monitoring systems. As cloud and AI workloads expand, these “behind-the-scenes” systems become a bottleneck, which can translate into strong demand for vendors like Vertiv.

### The key metric investors are watching: backlog

A standout datapoint in the report was a dramatic increase in backlog (the article cites roughly a doubling year over year). In practical terms, a rising backlog can signal:

- strong order intake relative to current capacity

- high visibility for near-term revenue

- sustained capex activity by hyperscalers and enterprise data-center customers

### What to watch next

For investors, the next catalysts will likely be:

- whether order momentum remains strong through 2026

- margin and cash-flow performance as volumes scale

- any signs of AI-infrastructure spending slowing (or accelerating)

Source: Nasdaq (The Motley Fool)