Vertiv Unleashes New Channel Program To Accelerate AI Builds

'The demand is through the roof. We expect that for the next three to four years ... You look at these once-in-a-lifetime type of hits for our category, and it's here right now,' Alex Johnson, Vertiv senior director of North American partner sales, tells CRN.

Vertiv’s lineup of modern data center products is enjoying a “dot-com”-style boom that Alex Johnson, senior director of North American partner sales, tells CRN is a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity for partners.

“The demand is through the roof. We expect that for the next three to four years. It's going to plateau at some point, right? This AI wave, but it's here,” Johnson (pictured above) told CRN. “It’s like the dot-com boom back in the day, and that's exactly how we’re relating to it. You look at these once-in-a-lifetime type of hits for our category, and it’s here right now.”

The Columbus, Ohio-based data center infrastructure facilities company, which has 25,000 employees, is leaning into its most sophisticated partners to deploy its advanced AI lineup, including devices from strategic partners, like Nvidia’s SuperPOD, a turnkey data center modernization product.

For that, the company is starting with a handful of its larger solution providers.

“So we came out with this Accelerated Compute Partner Program,” he said. “Launched it January 1 for these 11 pilot partners. They were just certified up in Columbus (Ohio) this past week, and we had roughly 60 of the top solution architects, sales engineers, and even technical executives attend this certification. So it was about a day and a half of kind of power, cooling, deep-diving into it.”

The next class has seven solution providers signed up. Johnson said the easiest way to get into this part of its partner program is to sell the solutions.

“We’re not going to turn down any partners that would like to sell these portfolios,” he told CRN. “We're just going to require them to at least send three solution architects from their firm up to Columbus to get trained up in Q3.”

Johnson said in the last seven years, Vertiv has brought in key channel-friendly leaders to enable its partners to sell its full stack of products, which includes its cooling, power distribution, and battery and backup, and the software that pairs with those.

Many of Vertiv’s customers are demanding expertise in high-density, accelerated computing in the data center, the type used by cloud service providers, enterprise, and hyperscalers to drive AI workloads.

“We went from hyperscalers that we’ve seen a lot of good growth within that high density — so AWS, the Microsofts, Googles — now you're starting to see enterprise customers start to adopt some of this high-density type of applications,” he said. “And so just based off of that enterprise AI, that's where the channel really plays best, and that's what we're most excited about, enabling channel partners to really sell again, as I mentioned, the whole portfolio.”

Vertiv has introduced a new channel program that pairs training with real-world expertise to enable partners to sell the most advanced offerings in its stack with a focus on delivering the highest possible uptime.

Speaking with CRN this week during XChange March 2025, an event sponsored by CRN parent The Channel Company, Johnson said the industry sees the value in Vertiv’s products and the critical role they play in making the most advanced workloads in the world operate effectively for customers. He said advances in large language model (LLM) software along the lines of DeepSeek only drives more customers to Vertiv and underscores its importance to keeping the compute running, Johnson said.

“The great part was it went from OK, you guys are an attached play to you are now essential to the data center and making sure that that's up and running. So I think just our category was elevated overnight, which excites me overall,” he told CRN.

Here is Johnson’s conversation with CRN edited for length and clarity.

There’s been almost a trillion dollars of investment so far this year that's been pledged to build out the data center. So, I mean, it seems like, if I was in the business of selling picks and shovels to those people, I would be pretty happy. Am I getting something wrong there?

No, you're spot on. And the demand is through the roof. We expect that for the next three to four years. It's going to plateau at some point, right, this AI wave, but it's here.

It’s like the dot-com boom back in the day, and that's exactly how we're relating to it. You look at these once-in-a-lifetime type of hits for our category, and it's here right now.

You talked a little bit about DeepSeek, the optimization of the technologies. We're excited for that because that will enable these enterprise players that have said, OK, it's too costly. What's the security around that?’ Now they're starting to see proven designs that they can go and implement in their own environments and applications. So I think that that is the coolest piece for us, is it's more accessible.

And also we knew that there would be a piece of it that would be optimized, but that's good for our business, because, again, that's more players that can actually go and utilize this AI technology as a whole.

We heavily collaborate with Nvidia. That is our best alliance partner. I've been collaborating with Craig Weinstein, he's the VP of channels over at Nvidia.

It’s been incredible to see what customers are working at with building these AI factories, because what we've seen is they'll go buy that $7 million Nvidia deployment, but they didn't think about the power and cooling portion that then gets delivered and it's sitting there and it's not powered and cooled.

So that's why we're collaborating from that aspect on OK protect that investment, but also make sure it's up and running especially if you're going to go and buy something like an Nvidia DGX type of box.

Is there a sort of a channel attach? Dell talks about their AI factory that they can kind of just drop in and deliver. It's got everything you need. Just plug it in. ‘We've configured everything. We've set everything up.’ It sounds like this is a similar sort of situation that you're talking about here. Can you talk about the channel, and how channel partners can benefit?

Absolutely. A couple things we look at when you're selling Nvidia or Dell: Dell's a great partner to us as well. The integration capabilities from these partners are going to be huge. So that's one advantage that they could definitely take advantage of.

The second piece is we've estimated with Nvidia. You buy the Nvidia server, the Dell server. There's an 8x draw, or we'll call it capitalization of what you can actually also stack on top of that.

So if it's power and cooling, storage, security, etc., like that, there's going to be the 8x draw that you can actually get to maximize not only that sale upfront but also sell that full stack.

Dell has been one that's been oversimplifying the go to market and the deployment of these AI factories. That's huge for a lot of these customers that are AI curious around their deployments. No doubt this is a major opportunity for partners to take advantage of, and I would argue it's an essential piece to take advantage of if they want to deliver properly for their customers.

Where should partners see themselves playing in that mix?

What we ended up doing was we put together this Vertiv Accelerated Compute Partner Program.

So we took roughly our 11 pilot AI-mature partners, and we worked with Nvidia and their leadership saying, we've identified these folks. Not only are they (Nvidia data center turnkey AI data center product) SuperPOD-eligible, so they can go and resell Nvidia’s gear, but also we want to make sure that they are AI-ready from an infrastructure, or power and cooling standpoint.

So we came out with this Accelerated Compute Partner Program, launched it January 1 of this year for these 11 pilot partners. They were just certified up in Columbus (Ohio) this past week, and we had roughly 60 of the top solution architects, sales engineers, and even technical executives attend this certification. So it was about a day and a half of kind of power, cooling, deep-diving into it.

The one piece that, again, I go back to Vertiv becoming a more-than-channel-friendly organization over the last seven years. We've opened up our whole portfolio to our channel community and ecosystem.

Now you've got to be certified to go and sell these high density-type of applications, and that's where those that select group of partners now is enabled to do just that within our Vertiv Accelerated Compute Partner Program.

We're going to closely monitor these pilot partners. We've already got the next seven that are on deck to be trained and certified. That's going to happen in Q3.

How are you looking at the smaller side of the Vertiv channel and helping those organizations mature into the Accelerated Compute Partner Program?

So we are starting to “bucketize” this so: AI-curious, AI-ready and AI-mature. Just because you're not an AI ready or AI mature, doesn't mean that you're not a valuable partner to us as well.

There's a lot of volume, lot of edge players that do move our edge portfolio as a whole.

But this is purely data-center ready, AI-mature ready when it comes down to those AI factories.

These are partners that not only Nvidia has approached us with, but also they're selling AI solutions today. So what we will do is, if we see a registration for liquid cooling, or a high-density type of application and product, what we will do is require the partner to be certified in that Q3 time frame.

So there's two ways to really enter (the Accelerated Compute Partner Program) Notify me. It's an exclusive program. Invite only. But we are going to have a running list.

The other piece is going to be start to sell these type of applications. And that's an easy way to get into our program is to not only be AI-ready, but also SuperPOD ready, but also the third piece is going to be selling high-density type of solutions, and registering those within our program.

We're not going to turn down any partners that would like to sell these portfolios. We're just going to require them to at least send three solution architects from their firm up to Columbus to get trained up in Q3.

Are you making any changes to the channel here in 2025 around incentives, you know, front end, back end, whatever you're comfortable sharing?

So what's new for us this year to be launching a new incentive program, one that's going to be more engaging than ever. We've got a new platform that we're rolling out so we've had a decade-long relationship with a key vendor... we are going to be switching to a different vendor. This is going to have a handful of different trainings when it comes down to these product lines.

Secondly, it's going to make sure that they have the Vertiv credit card in their wallets at all times, to make sure that they're incentivized, just top of mind at all times when it comes down to power and cooling. I'm a big fan of ‘all ships rise.’ So you take our category as a whole. If we continue to elevate that, we're all going to see a benefit from that.

So yes, we are revamping our incentives for our distribution partners like Ingram Micro, TD Synnex, D&H Distributing, Carahsoft and others. We're going to go and build that into their rebate structure as well. We're also working on that from a partner standpoint, that is to be determined going into the second half.