All right, good afternoon and welcome to Vertiv's 2024 Investor Event. We're glad you're joining us here today. We've got a full house. We've got many more on the webcast, so again, welcome. A few housekeeping items. I would like to point out that during the course of this event, we will make forward-looking statements regarding future events, including the future financial and operating performance of Vertiv. These forward-looking statements are subject to material risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. We refer you to the cautionary language included in today's presentation, and you can learn more about these risks in our annual and quarterly reports and other filings made with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions we believe to be reasonable as of this date.
We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During our conference, we will also present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Our GAAP results and GAAP-to-non-GAAP reconciliations can be found in the investor presentation found on our website at investors.vertiv.com. Okay, let's take a look at the agenda for the day. We will have presentations from our CEO, Gio Albertazzi, our CFO, David Fallon. Following presentations, we will have a Q&A session of about 20 minutes. We will also have a 15-minute break between the presentations. We would ask that webcast participants please stay connected during that break. Our first presenter today will be our CEO, Gio Albertazzi, who will be joining the stage momentarily after a short video. So with that, again, welcome to Vertiv's 2024 Investor Event.
The world depends on data we power and cool. From AI solving food shortages to building entire smart cities, from life-saving discoveries to digital twins modeling the future, we are critical to unleashing AI's potential, accelerating the pace of technology. Our adaptable solutions and scalable breakthroughs at speed and volume deliver optimization, resilience, and efficiency. In the face of rapid innovation, leading chipmakers turn to us to co-create, redefining the limits of densification and raising the bar for accelerated compute. Our uniquely strong and scalable service capabilities deliver anytime and anywhere. With our comprehensive portfolio of leading technologies, we're solving complexities of the AI revolution, enabling visionaries to navigate the future on roads we build, going to unimaginable places, breaking through barriers once deemed impossible, protecting the world's most precious asset, our collective ingenuity. Because at Vertiv, we make data limitless.
Welcome, everyone. Do I have my? Can you hear me? Yes. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. A year ago, we were together in New York. I can't believe a year. Time goes fast when you're having fun, and we're having a lot of fun. The industry is as exciting as it can be, and Vertiv, quite honestly, is a very, very, very exciting place to be. So we enable the digital critical infrastructure. It's an industry that accelerates at speeds that were inconceivable just a couple of years ago, three years ago. An industry that relies on performance, always, and we see that technology is even more central today than it has ever been, and it will become even more central in the future.
The industry demands growth, scalability, efficiency, reliability, continuity, all things that we believe we are in a best place to deliver to the industry. So a lot to deliver to the industry, a lot has been delivered. It's the strength of Vertiv. The strength of Vertiv, that is, I believe, well captured in these figures here, and it's Vertiv at a glance at the end of 2024, and now a year that has been strong, particularly strong. We're very proud of what we have achieved so far. Certainly, the strength in the market, in the thermal market, in the power market, as it shows here, the strength of our 30,000 employees, the strength of our global presence, and first and foremost, the strength and the breadth of our portfolio. Our market has accelerated, and especially the data center, the hyperscale and colo part of the market has accelerated.
We have gained market share in this market. If we compare our sales per market segment this year relative to a year ago, we project in an 80% data center. So the part of the market that is growing the fastest is the fastest for us, becoming a bigger share of our total and gaining market share. Pretty much today, 50% of our sales are colo and hyperscale. It's a broad-based group of customers, a large customer base, but the part of the market that's accelerating the most is where we capture the most. The mix you're familiar with, the opportunity is pretty balanced across all the segments. And naturally, the Americas, the part of the business that is accelerating, the part of the market that is accelerating the most is where we are accelerating the most in terms of our mix. So clearly, it's a lot about focus.
It's about our strength. It's about our competitive advantages as a critical infrastructure leader. Last year, we were very adamant and crisp about the elements that define our competitive advantage. So application expertise, clearly customer collaboration. And we'll see today how central customer collaboration is. And it's more central today. It will be more central in the future than it has ever been, certainly even a year ago. Complete portfolio, the continuous innovation, reliability and quality that really separates Vertiv from the rest of the market. A truly global presence and an ability to scale that is second to none and an industry-leading service. But there are parts, there are aspects of us running the business that we're doubling down on while we, of course, make sure that all these competitive advantages get reinforced. It is technology.
The market, the designs, the underlying technology that we power and cool is accelerating. So enabling this AI high-density infrastructure is central to our strategy. And we are leading the industry in doing that. This is all about cooperation in the industry. A year ago, we were talking about our relationship with the best providers of silicon technologies and the largest data center providers. This is all the more reason true. And that collaboration, that partnership is stronger than ever. It is about our superpowers, as I like to call them, our ability to customize at scale for our large customers, our ability to configure at speed for the more distributed market, for the enterprise, all parts that are moving very, very, very fast.
Our ability to have the right supply chain, to have the right capacity for the demand today, tomorrow, the demand that is coming, anticipating the needs of the market. So we believe that for all that, we are uniquely positioned. And combine that uniquely positioned with our ability to execute, and you have a recipe for performance, enduring performance. If we look at the last four years, I think these charts tell a story of acceleration and performance. The top line has been growing 16% over the last four years, faster than the market, gaining market share, a margin expansion of almost 1,000 basis points, and certainly a cash generation profile that is very different than what it was before. So with strong financial profile, growth, and an ability to turn technology, executional prowess into financial results. How does that happen? It is about doubling down on our executional strength.
Executional strength, executional strength, executional strength. That's really a mantra for us across the organization. A year ago, we were talking about having clear priority, rigorous operating cadence. We were talking about acceleration of the Vertiv Operating System. We strengthened the leadership team. We increased the supply chain resilience. We overall increased and continue to increase capacity. All true. We continue to be extremely focused and pleased with the progress. We know that more can be done. Now we're doubling down on elements of making sure that as the market and the AI acceleration in the market happens across the world, we capture all elements. Equally strong, the commercial execution everywhere in the world. VOS is accelerating, and it's liberating capacity, and it's creating opportunity for leverage as efficiency. Operational leverage is a fundamental tenet of our value story, as you have seen and you will continue to see.
Commercial execution and working capital improvement. A lot more to do, a lot more to do, and an opportunity to continue to lead an industry while delivering on our financial promise. Continuous improvement is really profoundly ingrained in our culture and profoundly ingrained in the culture of our leadership team. Our leadership team, oops, one too many. Our leadership team that is, in many respects, the one that you saw a year ago with some differences. Two new entries to the Vertiv leadership team. One is Scott, who's come from leading our global strategic accounts business, a very important role where he was, he and his team were extremely successful. Scott previously led one of our technologies.
So after this enormous and profound familiarization with the market, Scott continues to have and brings this customer intimacy, understanding of where the customer is going into everything that is global portfolio and running our business units. New to Vertiv is Frank. Frank joined us a couple of more months ago. A fantastic, superb addition to our team, really focused on talent, focused on execution, and focused in continuing to evolve our culture. A high-performing culture, a lot of progress there. So talking about high-performing culture, of course, leads us straight into our strategic priorities. You know these strategic priorities. We shared them with you last year. We've been using these as our north star for about two years now, pretty much my tenure. In no specific order, it is financial strength, customer focus, it is high-performance culture, operational excellence, and a lot of innovation, a lot of innovation.
This is a far-reaching Cultural North Star that guides us all in the organization. With that north star, with those priorities, we are reaffirming our 2024 guidance. It's a guidance that once more highlights the strength of a particularly good year 2024. Of course, a couple of months to go. Guidance here, but very pleased by how the year is unfolding. This strength that delivers a 14% growth in a year on year gets us to a 19% adjusted operating margin, a $1 billion free cash flow generation. This momentum and this strength leads us into our 2025 that continues on this very strong momentum and acceleration. It's important to say that you will hear us talk more and more going forward in terms of our earnings per share. Earnings per share will become more and more central to the way we look at the business.
Our preliminary view here is between $350 and $360 in 2025. Growth, we talked about growth that would be above the 14% when we had our earnings call three weeks ago or thereabout. Now we are viewing a 16%-18% growth in a year with an adjusted operating profit between 20.5%-21.5% and staying high, very high in the range of cash flow conversion while maintaining our net leverage ratio between the one and two that we shared with you already. A strong 2024, an acceleration in 2025. How does that all market traction, innovation, strength of value proposition, execution translate into a vision for the next five years? That's the next picture here. We have a top-line growth vision of 12%-14% going forward. It is above market growth. We'll talk about market later.
It is a lot revolving around innovation and execution, and certainly, it is about continuing to be the market leader and continue to drive the market as the market so dynamically changes. Everything is around ability to deliver, ability to scale, ability to service. It is innovation, innovation, innovation, and enabling the transformation, the technical transformation, the technology transformation, sorry, that the industry is undergoing. We talked about VOS. We talked about operational leverage. We talked about productivity in general and commercial execution, and that translates in an ambition of 25% adjusted operating margin in the planning period while continuing to be strong cash generators, continue to be strong cash generators. We're very excited. We believe we have a unique strength in the industry. We're proud of our execution. We're very excited about all the innovation that we are delivering and working on with our partners.
But how do we deliver this all? How do we deliver this all? Well, through the value creation framework that you see here. This is not new. You have seen that already a year ago. That's excellent news. That means that what we started a year ago is working, is alive, is well. We have progressed. We're proud of the progress. We're pleased. We're not satisfied, as you heard me say so many times. We have so much more to do, not only because we can be better, and that's certainly one of our kind of underlying mindsets, foundational mindsets, but because we are aware of the fact that our role in the industry is to make sure that the industry, the infrastructure enables the growth that the industry needs and deserves, that I say, but also at the same time enables the technology transformation that is undergoing.
Two big things at the same time need to happen, and we need to enable the growth of the industry and the technology transformation. I can't be more excited. It's never been so fun being in the industry, and particularly never been as fun as being at Vertiv. So super excited here. I just want to walk you briefly through the six vectors of value creation. It is leadership in a strong and accelerating market. It is being the leading innovator, as I was saying earlier, and uniqueness of the portfolio, making sure that uniqueness continues to expand and become stronger and evolve as the industry and the applications evolve. It is long-standing customer relationships with customers and with the key players in the industry. It's about the roadmap to operational excellence.
It's about margin expansions, as you saw in the prior slide, through operational excellence, through operational leverage, through commercial excellence, but again, through innovation as well. Innovation creates value for our customers that turns into value for Vertiv. And it is about generating that cash flow that gives us capital allocation agility that we need. It is a consistent, strong framework that translates our ambitions in how we make those ambitions come to reality. Let's start to talk about the market. Very difficult to pin down the market. A year ago now, one thing we know, the market is growing. The market is strong. The market is changing. Our view today is of data that continues to grow. We're almost 25% on the 2023, 28% CAGR. Server growth. And here, of course, there are many dimensions to the server growth. One thing is the server.
When we talk about AI servers, GPU, one thing is when we talk about more CPU, traditional, bulk them all together, a 16% growth. If we think in terms of the pure physical infrastructure, we're talking about something just shy of 10% in the 2023-2028 window. And probably the metric that is the most revealing is the amount of installed power. We're thinking in terms of 100 gigawatts in the 2023 to 2029 period with increments that go from 13 gigawatts at the beginning of the period to about 20 gigawatts towards the end. So the market is going fast. Let's go back one year ago.
When we were first showing and sharing our view of the market, we were pretty adamant about the fact that, hey, in this market, there are some exogenous headwinds that if you will keep the almost infinite appetite for growth of the industry under somewhat constrained control. I think a year ago, we all agree with that. We know that power availability is a constraint. Now more than ever, probably we were not that clear a year ago, but we're very clear now about the fact that simply providing or making all the labor, skilled labor available on site is no small endeavor. That's a constraining factor in the industry. So all these headwinds are there. They were there a year ago. We've been proven right.
With all this, as usual, we take a quite balanced approach, measured approach to the market growth that translates in numbers that you will see. But first, before we go there, I want to talk about another dimension that is very important. And the dimension that is very important is our opportunity per megawatt, our $1 million per megawatt TAM and how it unfolds. We've been talking about very specifically about a non-AI data center, an AI data center. What we see in the market is a little bit of a change in that respect. That kind of a black and white, strong dichotomy is blurring a bit. What we see, especially true for the large customers, is design something today that is future-ready. That's something today that is future-ready needs to be able to handle loads that will be mixed in terms of density.
There will be mixed in terms of a type of cooling, in terms of type of power. Mind you, the life cycle of a data center is probably 20+ years. Things change a lot in those 20+ years. So because of this blurring, this gray areas, we will probably from now on start to talk in terms of the total opportunity. Our current view of the total opportunity, sorry, goes from between $275 million-$3.5 million per megawatt. Now, you will see later on that there are a lot of things afoot in terms of how the technology evolves. Is this a static picture? Is this the way it will be for the next five, 10 years? We'll see. Things will evolve. We like the direction of this evolution because we know that there will be more technology. There will be more complexity.
But I think we believe that this is a fair representation of the opportunity at hand in terms of TAM. So combine the numbers that you saw earlier, combine the numbers here, and we are looking at a market that is growing at a 9%-12% in the period. But let me unpack this a little bit. Let's start with the colo and clouds, the hyperscale and colo space. Here, we see a growth between 15% and 17% globally. So quite remarkable speed, not dramatically different from prior, but not dramatically different from what we shared with you a year ago. We see more acceleration in the enterprise part of the market and distributed IT, but specifically in the enterprise as AI starts to infiltrate also that type of market. Combined, the data center for us, it's a 10%-13% CAGR.
Not much has changed in the telco and the commercial industrial. So the market continues to be strong. We believe that market will be strong for a long while. The market is robust, and we are very well positioned to serve that market, to accelerate that market. I'd like to say we are driving that market from an infrastructure standpoint. Clearly, it's not just a market. It's not the opportunity, but it is a lot about the innovation that we can drive, especially important in these times as things are changing rapidly. Maybe my slides are not changing rapidly, at least not as rapidly as I wish them to change. So we are a leading innovator. You have seen that. You have seen that several times. We are resolute in, if anything, accelerating the lead that we have from a technology standpoint.
We are increasing our rate of growth for everything that is engineering and R&D spent in the period. We are shortening our time to market. We are leveraging and cooperating and enriching the partnerships in which we are like never before, be it on the silicon side, be it on the data center owner and user side. So a lot is going on. Tomorrow, many of you, I believe, here in the room, of course, not the people on the webcast, but the people in the room, I hope you will all be with us visiting SC 2024 booth. You will see a lot of technology. You will hear a lot of technology there. I want to just point to single out a couple of important projects for us, but just two out of a vast array of innovation.
One is Vertiv Power Nexus, where having a portfolio, having and owning the entire powertrain allows us to condense in one product that combines switchgear, UPS, or power conversion technology, battery storage, all in one product that simplifies dramatically the time to market. The installation delivers unparalleled efficiency and certainly delivers a winning footprint. Footprint is key. So not only that, but also a product that is absolutely ready for all the challenges of AI in terms of loads and in terms of power needs and all the interaction with the grid. Tomorrow, you will see live our CoolChip CDU 2300. It's top of the range, 2.3 megawatt. The industry highest CDU capacity per sq ft. We understand what that means. We understand the value of space inside the white space. So we constantly work on our portfolio, not just at product level, but at entire system level.
So technology is central. Our portfolio is uniquely broad. And let me get there. The picture is one you're familiar with. Various colors characterize the various technologies here. And the various technologies are also how we have organized our business units. You remember we are organized by regions and business units. So I will now go through all the various disciplines and our portfolio in those disciplines. It's quite vast, but it's always as we like from absolute grid to chip, from chip all the way to heat rejection or heat reuse in a better situation. So the most complete portfolio. Very proud of that, but also and even prouder of the acceleration in terms of innovation that we are driving. Acceleration in terms of innovation that will be and will continue to be relentless.
If we look at this chart, this chart talks about the density, rack density, as we use, of course, NVIDIA for obvious reasons, as the offering evolves through the years and through the roadmap of NVIDIA. We like to think at three levels. So bear with me. The first level is GPU. Let's say peak rack density for AI GPU racks. That means your denser rack, what density does it have? But then we know that it's all about the pod. So in the pod, you have different types of racks. You have GPU racks. You have communication racks. You have various types of racks.
Whereas in the peak density rack, we go from about 139 all the way to about 1 gigawatt towards the back end of the spectrum, you'll see that in terms of average per pod, that will go from about 40 kilowatt per rack in 2024 all the way to probably 500 at the end of the spectrum. It's a lot of change. There is a lot of physics involved in that change. But then if you step back again and you realize that it's not all extreme high density that has been built across the world, then if you average out across the racks that are built in the world in any given period, it's no exact science, but I believe absolutely correct directionally, then you will have that the rack density will grow, but a slightly, well, if not significantly lower pace.
But again, it is an industry that has extremes, the extremes that you have to be ready for or loads that are more normal. And that situation will continue over time. And the ability to serve and have the technology for the extreme as well as anywhere else in this spectrum is critical. And sometimes you have that inside the same data center during the life cycle of the data center, and you have to prepare for that. That's why being knowledgeable about the entire infrastructure is so absolutely crucial. It's so absolutely crucial. And we are uniquely strong in that. So it is everything in the powertrain, in the thermal chain, and inside the white space.
So the ability to think system, but not even just power or thermal systems, is the combination of everything as the density, the interconnection between all the aspects of the infrastructure forces that. So that is a unique strength of Vertiv that is becoming even more important in the industry. Now, the industry is evolving. It's definitely evolving a lot. We will not go too much into future technologies for obvious reasons. We have very good visibility of what it takes to be the winner and to enable the industry in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028. Some of the technology are in the making and are in the making cooperatively with our partners. But when we think about the challenges, when we think about the technology needs, then we think in terms of higher voltages. We think about this combination of liquid and air.
Sometimes we think in terms of we will reach limits of physical limits of heat rejection in terms of the sheer size of a data center and the amount of heat that needs to be dissipated. An industry that increasingly requires speed, requires capacity. It's an industry where the digitally enabled services will be more and more central, so there are a lot of challenges ahead. There is a lot of exciting innovation out there, and we are working head down to make that happen and to transform the industry. I believe we are at the wheel of the infrastructural part of this industry, and of course, for us, it's very important making this happen with our partners, and that leads me to the first of our, I think, three videos in the presentation, and we were together a year ago in New York.
It was much colder than here. A year ago, we were in New York, and we had Chad and Chris talking about the relationship between their company and Vertiv, their companies and Vertiv, and we wanted to see where the relationship is a year later, so a lot has happened. A lot has happened in the industry. A lot has happened for our customers. A lot has happened for us, but leading together with them, enabling them has been the mantra and is the mantra today, but let's see what Chad has to tell us. Please.
With more than two gigawatts of critical power capacity under customer contract in North America and Europe, QTS Realty Trust has a lot riding on their data centers. So when demand began to skyrocket, QTS turned to a partner they could trust, Vertiv.
With end-to-end digital infrastructure portfolio, extensive service and commissioning capabilities, and industry expertise, Vertiv was uniquely positioned to help the Blackstone portfolio company meet unprecedented demand.
Well, I think the thing that makes Vertiv so different is they were prepared for what was coming with the AI innovation and growth. I think just to have a partner in Vertiv that has the scale and capacity from a manufacturing, a research and a technology group that understands where things are going, and the ability to set very nimble entrepreneurial paths forward has been a huge strategic advantage for us.
Through its comprehensive portfolio of power, thermal management, IT systems, and infrastructure solutions, Vertiv is ready to support the dem ands of AI and accelerated computing.
What I've appreciated about Vertiv is their ability to deliver at scale, but not just in one area.
Whether it's in the IT services business or whether it's in the power business or the thermal business, meaningfully accelerating speed, certainty, and execution for QTS and its customers.
Great technology is only the beginning. Enabling AI infrastructure requires a combination of execution and scalability that Vertiv excels at delivering. From planning and design to construction, occupancy, and beyond, Vertiv's industry-leading mission-critical commissioning ensures every phase is efficient up to specifications and optimized for performance.
Well, I think the strategic advantage for Vertiv, from my standpoint, is the scale, the speed, and the certainty. Something that we've used a lot of with Vertiv, but maybe they've taken it to the next level, is the wide breadth of services and support. We're opening 30-plus new data centers over the next couple of years.
It's very challenging for us to be able to have all of those right people in the right seats at exactly the right time with all the right skills. It gives me confidence that as we deliver these buildings, it's a product set we've always used in some form or some fashion, but to be able to have Vertiv scale with us as we have had unprecedented growth, it's a huge confidence builder that we can continue to take on more and deliver to our customers. The most strategic aspect of our relationship is they're true partners, and they deliver, and if there's one thing that separates QTS and Vertiv in the industry, it's we do what we say we're going to do, and we do it faster than others.
All right, so very inspiring. We are so proud of the business with QTS.
They are an amazing, an absolutely amazing company. So really, really proud for also everything we do as Vertiv to support them. They are an incredible journey. But you heard that. Understanding of what the AI future is like is speed, is acceleration, is scale. All ingredients, let's say all elements, all competitive advantages that you heard me mentioning already in the last half an hour or so. But one thing stands out that is absolutely important is service. You heard Chad talk about service several times. 30 data centers of enormous scale being built. The complexity of that is sometimes unimaginable. The complexity of the technology is intense. So having a partner to deploy, deliver, and then service during life cycle is of enormous importance.
And this leads me to talk a little bit about service.
Service, when we think service, not only do we start from what we believe is the strongest service organization and offering and know-how in the industry, but it's something that we like to look at as made of two parts. One is that enables deployment. Exactly what you heard from Chad is that complexity is the ability to start up, to commission very complex infrastructures is about the ability to project manage, to help the integration, and also be there and partner in the design and the assessment of the infrastructure that is being designed and eventually built. But then there is the life cycle of the infrastructure that for us is the life cycle of the installed base. We, in general, think in terms of 20+ years of installed base.
Now, this installed base that is being created right now and the one that is accelerating is complex in its very nature. It's very critical. It's very sensitive in terms of the impact that can have in the availability of the infrastructure or all elements that make the competencies and our strength even more important. But it's also all elements that favorably strengthen our ability to capture that installed base. So installed base has been created. That is stronger for us from a capture standpoint. And then it's contracts, and then it's time and material, and then it's spare parts for the duration of the life cycle. But the complexity, that very complexity also calls for more advanced services. We're very proud, for example, of our NextPredict condition-based services, telemetry-based, much more advanced than anything done so far.
And again, so important in terms of value to our customers, value to Vertiv, and opportunity for attachment. But another thing that you heard from Chad is the scale and the speed at which the market is growing. If you think about service as something static, please think again. Service needs to grow at the same speed at which the capacity overall and the output overall are growing. Sometimes even more because the mix is more towards an installed base that requires exactly those types of services. So it is very important to be the strongest player in service, but it's as important to be able to scale that capacity and capability as the industry evolves. In that respect, we clearly start from a very strong position globally, locally, sheer number of people, but also our ability to scale.
Vertiv Academy is a very strong capability of ours, very mature in terms of what it can do, but we're scaling that too. We have more than 30 locations. Our volume of service training has increased almost to 50% in the last 12 months, and the amount of AI-focused training has increased hundreds of times. Certainly, everything around liquid cooling, but not only, around the entire complexity of the portfolio for AI, so you cannot recreate that if you do not have it. You can expand it if you have it, and that's very much our mantra here, scale and speed. Scale and speed are central to the success of our industry and are central to our value proposition. I'll try another click. Hopefully, it doesn't go two slides. Okay, so I was talking about scale. I was talking about speed.
For that, prefabrication infrastructure solutions for us in our portfolio, an extraordinarily important element of our value proposition. Also think in terms of infrastructure solution and prefabrication of the technologies that we own. So we're not just randomly picking and buying pieces of a Lego. We are integrating the technology that we know so well, delivering speed, delivering scalability, and delivering efficiency and footprint optimization, serious footprint optimization. But let's take a look at video here. Please.
AI and accelerated compute have pushed data center operators into uncharted waters. Meeting that challenge requires flexibility and speed. Vertiv Infrastructure Solutions bring together an entire portfolio of end-to-end power, cooling, IT systems, and services, all enabled through prefabricated modular data centers designed to get you up and running faster. Vertiv's innovative approach improves deployment times and reduces risk through global designs that are localized for easy deployment.
In-region factory assembly design and testing, plus local deployment teams and commissioning services all help customers achieve the results they need. Vertiv Infrastructure Solutions offers quality and consistency, optimized facility space, delivers significant TCO savings, and unparalleled flexibility to data centers when you need it most.
So very much aligned to the values and to the critical success factors for the industry, not just for Vertiv that I was sharing with you. When we think about Infrastructure Solutions and prefabrication, we think in two ways. The first one is customized at scale. Okay? Do you remember we were talking about the two superpowers, customized at scale and configured at speed? We start with customized at scale. Large customers with big estates with challenges and speed as the central element of their success.
With them, we customize the design of our power modules, thermal modules, IT modules, white space modules, or the entire data center to their exact needs, and then we scale. We scale, adding speed and sometimes reducing their time to value almost by 50%. It's a big competitive advantage for Vertiv. And it's about speed, and it's about TCO. But it's not always customized at scale. Not all our customers have the big estates and roll out tens of data centers a year. There is a part of the market that is smaller, more distributed, more enterprise-like type of applications. Here in the background, you'll see the configuration and eventually the ordering, if you will, of a reference design, of a reference design for, for example, an NVIDIA stack here. If you think about, you're an enterprise customer, you are challenged. You have to understand AI.
You have to understand what type of infrastructure. You have to understand how the white space should be shaped, what type of cooling, what type of power. There is a big learning curve. There is time. There is cost involved. And we can simplify that all. So we configure to their exact needs quickly, and we deliver quickly, shortening dramatically their time to owning an AI infrastructure. So it is the other side of the infrastructure solution capabilities as important. So multiple aspects to this competitive advantage, but again, absolutely important. And this leads me to the third of our kind of a growth value model box that we saw before of the six value creation model boxes. And it is about relationships.
Relationship because we want to make sure that together with our partners, we co-develop solutions that will solve the challenges that the industry doesn't yet know how to solve. When we look at a 500 kilowatt per rack, one megawatt, that would be a lot. 500 kilowatt per rack or one megawatt per rack. Not all the technology is there. Not just at rack level, but everything infrastructure really optimized, so working together hand in hand, roadmap alignment is absolutely crucial for the industry, let alone for Vertiv, so it is about collaboration. It is putting the right resources, the right competencies around the table, and then really address the unmet needs, and the needs are different whether we talk about the large hyperscalers or colos. It's different if we're talking about enterprise or IT distributors and working with them.
Again, here is an area of very important reference design play or when we are working with the server, when we're working with the server ODMs. So a vast array of very important partnerships in the industry. And most exciting when these partnerships drive innovation. And I can't think of a better example. Actually, I can think of many very good examples, but one good example, certainly something that some of you may have read this morning in the press release about our fast, sorry, flex. And it's about the relationship between Compass and Vertiv. And again, a year later, see how a relationship that was very strong a year ago has evolved. And now over to Chris, please, David.
At Vertiv, our portfolio of critical digital infrastructure solutions and our ability to customize at scale puts us in a unique position to help companies evolve and meet the growing demands of generative AI and high-density compute. That's why when Compass Datac enters needed to evolve their thermal management infrastructure, they turned to Vertiv. Vertiv and Compass engineers collaborated to define a forward-thinking solution that allows for sustained growth with Vertiv designing and manufacturing the Vertiv CoolPhase Flex. The first of its kind in the data center industry, this innovative package system design combines liquid cooling and refrigerant-based air cooling technologies into a single unit.
Throughout the course of this year, the Compass and Vertiv relationship is really deep, and we've continued to iterate on AI and liquid cooling.
One of the big challenges with a lot of the GPU architectures out there is that we still have a combination of other types of loads that are in those data halls. That mix, that blend, that future condition, nobody knows what it's going to look like. And Vertiv's right there alongside us developing solutions that allow that flexibility for our client base. So Compass and Vertiv have worked over the last year plus on the Vertiv CoolPhase Flex product. This product is a very, very unique product in the marketplace. It allows any one of our units to do either full air or full water cooling. That means we can do direct-to-chip. This level of flexibility is unparalleled in the marketplace.
As part of the maintenance innovation program, Vertiv has delivered a predictive analytics model that was tuned for Compass's needs and preferences.
Vertiv NextPredict is a powerful tool that monitors and predicts equipment health using a health score, enabling early detection of performance decline, minimizing intrusive maintenance risk, and enabling informed lifecycle service planning.
Another great area of collaboration between Compass and Vertiv has been around predictive analytics, with Vertiv helping us to deliver on a predictive analytics model that allows us to only touch the equipment when we need to. Through their NextPredict platform, we view ourselves as being able to manage our truck rolls much better, manage the ability for us to have to go out and touch equipment, but then have a lot better visibility into what's going on within the equipment. This innovative technique has really been a key hallmark of Compass's strategy, and it's been awesome to have Vertiv right there leading the way alongside us.
In an industry where demands on capacity continue to rise at an unprecedented pace, Vertiv's ability to customize quickly and at scale is proving invaluable in preparing companies like Compass Data Centers for the needs of today and tomorrow.
One of our anchors here at Compass is around the concept of mass customization. How can we deliver the things that our clients need without breaking the system? Our whole system is designed for scale, and Vertiv's been right there alongside us. As you think about investing in AI and what is coming out of AI, I really look at Vertiv as a great foundational block. I think that they've got their ears to the ground to know what's coming. They also listen very closely to their customers. And very importantly, for a company of their size and scale, they adapt very well without sacrificing the ability to scale. All right.
A big thank you to Chris and the Compass team and other phenomenal company, certainly with a very effective business model and philosophy. It's absolutely a joy also working with them as well. You heard a lot of what I was saying. Scale, scale, scale. Vertiv displayed unparalleled AI infrastructure prowess. You heard a lot about service. NextPredict. But I think that one of the things that's most remarkable is it is about managing multiple loads in the data center for the years to come. So the ability to be flexible, to flex across technology, cooling technology is absolutely central. That's why when the page changes, it's me. It's my thumb, probably. I need to exercise my thumb for the future.
As the technology evolves, for us, it's absolutely important to bring to the market something that can seamlessly modulate between two types of cooling, liquid and air, so that you certainly have a future-ready data center, and this, which is a new to the market type of product and concept, also comes with unparalleled efficiency thanks to the pumped refrigerant economization, but also with an extreme ease of installation. This is a package unit. It minimizes, again, the concept of prefabrication in many respects for what thermal is concerned because you minimize the activity on-site, the installation, the piping on-site, and at the same time, you optimize the white space, the data hall. These units are external to the data center, so we are very proud and super excited about CoolPhase Flex, and one thing is sure, scale also for this type of product.
Just like anything else, we heard scale, scale, scale today, and we will continue. Scale is about us delivering on, and now we move to the second part of our value framework, the execution, the operational execution part. And we start with our operational excellence roadmap. It has two flavors that are incredibly self-reinforcing. One is make sure that we serve the market, that we enable the market, that we accelerate the market. That is about having the right capacity in the right place, being absolutely rigorous with our capacity plans and forward-looking with our capacity plans. It is about creating the resilience that the market needs, kind of a mirror to the market, having our product produced in multiple continents, in multiple regions and markets, the resiliency of our supply chain, more broadly speaking. And we are pretty scientific about that.
We have made tremendous progress in that respect. Also is the productivity, VOS, Vertiv Operating System that is unleashing capacity. All good things for the market, all good things, the other side of this operational excellence roadmap coin, if you will. It is all what this delivers to our financial performance. Capacity is, of course, enhancing and growing our top line. Resiliency is making all our value proposition resilient, no matter what challenges are thrown at us. Productivity is really driving margin expansion. All this is happening as we speak. We are pleased with the progress done so far, and we know that there is so much more to do in terms of doing better. There is so much more to do because the market is accelerating.
So we are more rigorous, more focused in the way we run everything, and in particular, everything that is operational execution. But sometimes, if we go back to some of the earnings call, we talked about, yeah, do you have capacity? How much capacity are you making available? Oh, I said, hey, we always have this 20%, 25%, 30% wiggle room. That's the way we think about capacity being made available. Don't think capacity as something static. It's not static. As we are here today, our capacity is being expanded. And the expansion of capacity is not just, oh, we need one new factory also, or we need more footprint also. It's the system of all the things together and very importantly, how much capacity, productivity, and a mature productivity action is able to liberate.
And I think it's important to just see, have some example of what has happened during this year. And many things have happened, and many things are happening. And a year from now, we will have a similar, probably bigger and more impressive list of all the improvements, of all the capacity that will be created. But it is about new factories, new factories in India, new factories in the U.S. opened this year. It's about operating and starting production example for liquid cooling virtually, actually, not virtually, in every continent in which we operate. So it's capacity and it's resiliency. The same is true with switchgear. The same is true with chillers. It's across the board. It's about, and you will see example here, it's about productivity and liberating productivity and liberating capacity through productivity and through VOS. All examples that are unfolding on this picture here.
So there is more to it than this, but we wanted to give you a sense of all that is happening. But it's happening also, as I was saying, in terms of service. Service is very important. Service needs capacity. So capacitizing service is as important for us as capacitizing manufacturing and supply chain. And that is what has happened. So a lot of action. Action will continue. We're pleased. We know that there is more ahead. We're not stopping. Think about our capacity as something that continues to grow through different means, all in parallel. And again, we are very focused. We are very focused on the future, understanding exactly where the market is going and making that capacity available to make sure that under no circumstances will be a limiting factor to the growth of the market.
A lot also is about becoming more efficient and more productive in terms of capacity, as I was saying, but also in terms of our financial performance, but capacity is also the capacity of our salesforce, is our capacity of anybody working on the order to cash, all productivity that we are driving through a very rigorous and accelerating implementation of the Vertiv Operating System. I am always very simplistic in this approach, deliberately so, because I want to make sure that the entire organization thinks very simply so that we disseminate the mantra. It's about creating a freewheel, a flywheel that spins ever faster around best practice dissemination, around lean, lean manufacturing, of course, but lean in every process, continuous improvement, and it's about rigorous operating cadence. We have a myriad of initiatives across the organization. I'd like to point to two here.
One is, again, capacity liberation in our Tognana chiller plant. 25% capacity liberated with a good, intense, lean manufacturing exercise, and combining lean manufacturing with AI, now we are using AI to run and to dispatch our field service organization. We see a 10% productivity improvement. It's very important. 10% is a lot, and it's just the first 10% of a lot more coming. And it's so important when you rely on very, very skilled labor, so very important and very happy about the progress, but even more is out there for us, more acceleration ahead of us. This acceleration, this efficiency, this productivity definitely drives our margin expansion, and we are on the fifth of our six-box value framework. A margin trajectory that indicates and has a 25% objective here, ambition here, and a lot coming from operational leverage, a lot coming from operational leverage, fixed cost operational leverage.
Mind you, we'll continue to, and we are, as you saw, investing in innovation. We're investing in capacity, and we're investing in go-to-market as well. But with that, a lot of productivity, a lot of operational leverage. The productivity is on the fixed cost. The productivity is on everything that is viable, as I had a chance to share with you. And a lot of commercial execution. Commercial execution hinges around increasing the value that we deliver to our customers, and we are relentless in that. That's what our innovation is about. So there is a lot of opportunity for us out there. The market is heading in the right direction, and we have the right strategy and the right roadmap to continue to expand margins. Clearly, and both on margins and cash flow, David will elaborate later on, but it's about continues to generate strong free cash flow.
Always at the upper end of the spectrum, and that gives us the agility that we need. Dividends, you saw the press release this morning, raised to $0.15 a year, 50% up. Share repurchase, when the time is right, we said we'll be opportunistic there. We repurchased about $600 million worth of shares in February, but especially gaining the flexibility to fuel growth acquisitions and when possible, return capital to shareholders, so let's go to M&A and let's talk about M&A. Also, here, you will see that the strategy is pretty much consistent with what we shared with you last year. Since we met in New York, we acquired CoolTera, a very successful acquisition that really has accelerated and unleashed our strength in liquid cooling, but it's now three years since we acquired E&I, a very successful one.
Both acquisitions have been strategically extremely important in terms of the portfolio, in terms of our overall position, in terms of the role that we play in the industry. Our acquisition playbook is strong, is stronger than ever, and we are very, very focused on making sure that our pipeline is as strong. When we think in terms of acquisition, we always think in terms of how do we enable growth, a growth that is consistent with our value framework. You heard me talk about technology and technology acceleration. A lot of this technology is being developed organically, but a lot of the technology is always looked at from an inorganic standpoint, just like we did with CoolTera, so that is a type of lens that we continue to use very intensely in the marketplace here.
But always think in terms of technology, always think in terms of, if needed, capacity, territories, and go-to-markets. We like our DNA. We want to preserve our DNA, but there is a lot that we can do. So with that, very excited about five years ahead, certainly very excited about 2025. 2029, that is very promising in terms of growth, adjusted operating margin in terms of cash flow conversion, making the right amount of capital, quite some capital to deploy, a lot of agility, let's put it this way, while keeping the leverage very much in control. So the market is exciting. Our position is super exciting. We are getting stronger every day. We understand the industry like very few others, maybe no other. And there is a lot to do in the future. There is a lot of value to unleash. With that, thank you for your attention.
Next will be David. But before David, I think we have a 15-minute break. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Very good.
So 15 minutes, that will, yep. We will start back at 3:59 P.M. We can round up 4. But for the webcast participants, please stick with us. We'll be back in 15 minutes. Everyone else, please stretch your legs.
Thank you. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you can please start to take your seats, we will begin in less than three minutes. It's all good. If everybody can please take their seats. We are starting in 19 seconds. Thank you very much. Great. Welcome back, everyone. Our next presenter is Vertiv CFO, David Fallon.
It's good to see a lot of familiar faces, generally smiling faces as well.
In all honesty, when I was preparing this weekend, as I was going through the deck, I was anticipating almost an unveiling of the numbers with each passing slide, oohs and ahs and applause. I realized this is probably a third time you've seen these numbers today, number one. Number two, I was standing in the back looking over the shoulder of some of the analysts right at 2:16 P.M. The analyst opened up the presentation, zoomed right down to the numbers. Within like 10 seconds, opened up Excel and started doing the modeling. I know you guys probably know these numbers better than I do by this point in time, but I'll add some color.
So, my objective over the next 20 minutes or so is to take everything that Gio shared this afternoon, whether it relates to the market, our top line growth, operational execution, or strategy, and truly demonstrate how that translates into our financial projections, our financial metrics over the next five years or so. Now, this slide does a pretty good job of summarizing what I plan to cover. And if you were here last year, well, not here, if you were in New York last year at this time, or if you looked at this presentation online from last November, the framework is very consistent. And that is a good thing. But the numbers, as you already know, are much better. And that's a really good thing. So, it all starts at the top, it all starts with operational execution. And Gio hammered that home.
Our operational execution has been strong over the last couple of years. We have done what we said we would do and then some. That is based, as Gio mentioned, that is based on a relentless, and when I say relentless, a relentless focus on an operational cadence across all aspects of the business. That's all regions, that's sales, that's operations, that's procurement, that's even the administrative functions. Really good progress. The good news is, as Gio mentioned, a ton of opportunity. That opportunity is reflected in the revised financial targets that we share in this presentation. As we introduced last year, and this is probably oversimplistic, but our top line growth, it means nothing unless it translates into profitability. That profitability means nothing unless it translates into free cash flow.
That free cash flow means nothing unless it translates into a capital deployment strategy that drives shareholder value. We've done a pretty good job with that over the last couple of years. I think our share price is up 170% since this time last year. It's hard to even fathom a $43 share price, but that's where we were 365 days ago. We, as a management team and also shareholders, were absolutely committed to continue to drive that shareholder value creation going forward. This next slide, very similar to or almost identical to what you saw earlier today, summarizes our projected organic growth going forward. 13% at the midpoint. Gio did a great job of explaining or summarizing the details and the dynamics behind that growth.
But to take a step back, that's 350 basis points higher than what we suggested a year ago. And that's based on a better visibility into the market growth and certainly driven by the AI-related demand. But it is also 250 basis points higher than what we anticipate from the market, which of course, logically implies that we expect to continue to drive market share expansion. And that's based on our confidence in our product technology, our services capability and reach, and very important, and you saw two videos today, strong relationships with our customers. And that confidence is across product lines and also market verticals. So, maybe before leaving this slide, just one comment. I've gotten a few questions. I was only in this room for about 30 seconds, and I think I got like 10 questions in those 30 questions or 30 seconds. But pricing.
Our projections for both Vertiv growth and the market growth is inclusive of pricing. As we mentioned last year, we don't necessarily see pricing as a driver of growth. Although our customers value our products, they value the services we provide, which makes it very conducive from a pricing perspective. We look at pricing more in relation to inflation, and that includes material inflation, freight inflation, and also labor inflation. We really look at it as a variable for profitability. Standing here today, similar to last year, we are quite confident based on the value that we continue to provide for our customers that we should continue to be able to price in excess of inflation. Based on that, we see that as really a lever to margin expansion, which is a good segue to the next slide.
This summarizes our historical and also our go forward ambitions for adjusted operating margin. I know today very purposefully is all about looking forward. I think sometimes it's okay to reflect, right? When I look at the margin expansion over the last couple of years, it's hard for me not to at least show a fleeting smile. I just won't do it in front of Gio. Pleased, but not satisfied. 1,100 basis points expansion in two years, much of the expansion from 2022 to 2023, certainly influenced by operational leverage. If you recall, in that period of time, we were out of balance as it relates to market pricing and market inflation. We very quickly addressed that to the extent, as I mentioned, we actually see that as a lever for continued margin expansion going forward.
Looking at the increase from 2022, or I'm sorry, from 2023 to 2024, certainly influenced by operational leverage and commercial execution, but we've really started to see the benefits of productivity driven by the Vertiv Operating System in the last several quarters, and once again, that has become a part of our DNA: operational execution, operational execution, operational execution, and we certainly anticipate that to continue going forward. Now, last year at this time, I stood on a similar stage as this stage in New York, and we shared an ambition for adjusted operating margin of 20%+ , and we gave a timeframe somewhere between 2026 and 2028, and as you all know, we expect to exceed that long-term target for full year 2025.
That's two years sooner than expected, which really speaks to the continued opportunity we have with margin expansion and definitely reflected in the 25% that we're projecting for 2029. Maybe just quickly going through the individual levers for margin expansion, operational leverage, it continues to be the most significant driver of margin expansion going forward. It's about 400 basis points or two-thirds of the 600 basis points we expect over the next five years. That's despite an increased assumption in our annual investment back into the business, so related to growth, technology, and capacity. Last year at this time, we said at the midpoint, $100 million, but as a range, somewhere between $75 million -$100 million a year to support growth. We're increasing that estimate by $75 million to $175 million at the midpoint.
The range anywhere between 150 and 200 could be higher in some years, lower in others, and that is absolutely correlated with our higher assumptions for our organic growth. Remember, 350 basis points higher than the previous model, but despite that increased assumption in OpEx investment, we still anticipate about 400 basis points of improvement related to operational leverage. Not to belabor each of these components, we absolutely see productivity, commercial execution to contribute to margin expansion. Each of those, about 100 basis points, so before leaving this slide, let me address something that's not even on the slide, and I've gotten four questions on this, so I walked from the back there in that curtain up here, and I think I had four questions on incrementals, so and it's math, right? You guys can do the math, probably already did.
If we hit the 25% in 2029, it implies incrementals around 33%, right? Give or take, 32%, 33%. If we are able to get there sooner, it will imply incrementals in the mid to upper 30s. And I would say the two most significant variables as it relates to the timing will be the top line growth. If we're able to grow in excess of 13% over this timeframe, we could get to that 25% sooner. And that's based on the operational leverage that we'll provide. The other variable is the magnitude and timing of that investment, incremental investment in growth. Once again, we're projecting between $150 million and $200 million. We will assess that as we go forward. But once again, none of this margin expansion, it means nothing unless it translates into cash. And that's what's captured on this slide.
So, this illustrates our free cash flow conversion historically and what we expect going forward, and it's been a fun and very quick path. So, if you recall in 2022, we actually burned cash. I think it was $270 million, and that seems like a lifetime ago. But we very quickly got the cash generation machine on the right path to the extent that our conversion in 2023, last year, was actually over 100%. We are expecting $1 billion of free cash flow this year. What I would say, what has driven that improvement is probably a more disciplined, a more systemic approach to the cash collection cycle. You guys are all familiar with the progress we've made with advanced payments, more reasonable customer terms, but still a ton of opportunity, including inventory.
And we plan on using the tools within the Vertiv Operating System to increase inventory turns. And that's despite the projected increase in the top line. Maybe last on this slide, CapEx. We reiterate the guidance we provided last year, which is CapEx investment to support growth somewhere between 2.5% and 3%. But I do point out next year, we do expect to be at the upper end of that range, so closer to 3%. And that implies $275 million of CapEx next year. And that's about $75 million higher than what we expect in 2024. But what I would say, consistent with what we've been communicating throughout the year, the DNA cash flow profile of this company, and I would also say this industry, it is strong. We're entitled to this. We expect it to continue to be strong.
And that really provides flexibility for us to manage our capital structure. And that also includes net leverage, which is captured on this next slide. So, last year, I said this was my favorite slide in the deck. And if you look at our net leverage, going back to 2022, it was somewhat elevated. The progress you see over the last couple of years, logically, absolutely correlated with the improvements that we've made with free cash flow and, of course, significantly improving EBITDA along the way. Absolutely comfortable reiterating the range we provided last year between one and two times lever. Absolutely comfortable with reiterating the color we provided, which is we're more than okay if our net leverage dips below one times, if the right investment isn't available at the right timing.
But we're equally comfortable taking leverage above two times if the right investment is available within the right timing. And that's just really a testament to our confidence and our ability to continue to drive free cash flow. We should be able to delever quite quickly. Before leaving this slide, the second bullet point in the second box to the right. So, we believe our debt and free cash flow profile supports an investment-grade credit rating today. Based on our metrics today, we believe we should be in investment grade. We are one notch below investment grade at S&P. We're two notches below at Moody's. And we just got upgraded by both in the last 30 days. It seems like 100 days ago. But within the last 30 days, we've been upgraded by both. We do have ambitions to become investment grade.
There are absolute benefits to being investment grade based on the cost of debt. Opens up access to the commercial paper market as well. But with that said, we will always manage our capital structure for whatever is in the best interest of shareholders. So, we do have ambitions. But with that said, we will do whatever makes sense from an equity perspective. That includes net leverage. And that also includes capital deployment, which is captured in this slide. So, the makeup of the slide is very similar, almost identical to last year. However, the number is much bigger. So, last year at this time, we had projected about $6.5 billion of capital to deploy over a five-year period. Based on the assumptions for growth, for profitability, and most importantly, free cash flow, we're increasing that projection by about $6 billion.
We anticipate about $12.5 billion to deploy over the next five years or so. The number is much larger, but the strategy remains the same. That's to focus on flexibility when the right opportunity presents itself. As Mr. Cote always says, problems and opportunities pick their own timing. When the right opportunity presents itself, we want to have the ability to act quickly and decisively. Now, maybe going quickly through the different components of capital deployment. Gio mentioned earlier today, and you all saw the press release. We're taking our annual dividend up 50% from $0.10 a share to $0.15 a share. Still not a huge cash obligation, I think, from $40 million a year to $60 million a year. We do anticipate increasing our dividend every year going forward.
If you're modeling, we expect the 2029 dividend to be about 2x the 2025 dividend. Share repurchases, our strategy there is unchanged. We will continue to be opportunistic as we were earlier this year when we repurchased $600 million of shares, I might add, at $66 per share, which looks pretty good right now. We have about $2.4 billion remaining on a $3 billion share authorization we received from the board a year ago. That's over a three-year period. Last, and the largest bar in the graph on the right is additional capacity. As you see, we will have ample capacity to be able to reinvest back into the business if the growth rate is in excess of the 13% we're modeling, plenty of capacity to continue to invest in growth, technology, and capacity.
Also, ample capacity for bolt-on acquisitions and to execute an acquisition playbook. And also, ample capacity to return additional cash to shareholders. But I think that the takeaway is we will remain patient, right? We don't look at this additional capacity as a hammer looking for a nail or use whatever analogy you want, cash burning a hole in your pocket. At the end of the day, we will center our strategy on retaining that flexibility. And once again, we will do whatever is in the best interest of shareholders. So, with that said, maybe taking a little bit of a shorter-term perspective, this is our preliminary guidance for 2025. As Gio mentioned, based on our tax rate finally normalizing, so we've had a lot of noise over the last several years with operating losses. And the warrants continue to play a little bit of trickery with the math.
But going forward, we will use adjusted EPS as our cornerstone financial metric, and our initial guidance for next year is between $3.50 and $3.60. That's based on 392 million shares outstanding. That's five million higher than full year 2024. Big driver of that would be the inclusion of the warrants for 2025. 26% effective tax rate. That's a percentage point lower than what we have as a normalized rate this year, and net interest expense is down based on lower interest rates and also an assumption of earning interest income on the cash, and that's based on 17% organic sales growth. Won't belabor that. Maybe of note, we see the Americas in the high teens, APAC in the low teens, and remember, APAC is more than just China.
So, we have two very strong markets in India and what we call internally Asia, which includes Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. And we expect strong growth in those markets next year. Adjusted operating margin, 21% at the midpoint. And then free cash flow conversion at 90%. And last, it comes all together here. Maybe two things. It's always a good thing when the large orange numbers are larger than the gray italicized parenthetical numbers. And hopefully, we can do that every year going forward. But I think the broad takeaway from today is we've made some good progress over the last couple of years. And that's definitely been driven by operational execution. But there's still a lot to come. There's still a ton of opportunity going forward. And we look forward to continuing to update. So, I'm getting the hook here.
I think next on the agenda is Q&A. Yep. That's right.
Thank you, David. I'll invite Gio to join us. All right. So, we're at Q&A. Hands are already up. So, that's encouraging. I would ask to please limit to one question. And if we have time at the end, we'll circle back around for additional questions. So, with that, we'll go ahead and start.
No questions?
First of all, thanks for that. So, this is going to be an annual thing now. Sounds like, David, you said you look forward every year to updating these targets. So, just want to make sure.
I don't think we're committing to that. Lynne stared at me when I said that. But it will depend on the pace and change within the business. And we felt this year there was enough change that it merited another event this year.
Okay. I'd like to start off just really, you're doubling investment spending. So, it sounds like next year you're doubling investment spending to $150-$200 million. I'd just be curious, Gio, in terms of next year specifically, what you're getting for that increased spending. Maybe give us two or three examples of where you're investing next year.
Well, investment is generally described. Correct me if I'm wrong there. But we're talking about, of course, capacity. We're talking about service expansion. We're talking about innovation predominantly and go-to-market. So, these are the elements. Again, in innovation, you see a lot of products here. You'll see a lot of products tomorrow. But there is way more innovation that is coming as well. Capacity. I was talking about capacity never being a static something. Clearly, we expand our capacity three ways, as I explained. Footprint. Sometimes that footprint is new factories.
Sometimes it's creating redundancies. Sometimes it's creating efficiency and liberating de facto footprint and volume. I'd say that the three elements will continue to be true going forward, but there is also go-to-market. I mean, having a strong portfolio, having a lot of demand coming both from kind of larger accounts in any of the regions we operate, but a lot of also more distributed enterprise requires the right go-to-market, and go-to-market is not just sales. It's a lot of the engineering, face-to-face engineering. A lot of our interaction with customers, and increasingly so, is our ability to interact and to give the technology, how can I say, peace of mind to our customers and know-how as they project their future, and these are absolutely elements there.
Great. Next question.
Hi. Thanks for this. Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup.
So, Gio, you talked about 250 basis points better than your anticipated market growth. Last year was 100. So, maybe you can talk about where that's coming from a little bit more. When you listen to the presentation, you hear a lot about infrastructure solutions and overall intent. Is it that? Is it power? Is it thermal? What's the biggest difference versus last year in that higher growth?
In the higher growth for Vertiv?
You guys
. For us. Well, there is more market out there. And the market is becoming more demanding from a technology standpoint. We believe that our technology and our portfolio is stronger. And the evolution of the market is very suited to our portfolio, our capabilities, and how our capabilities are expanding.
So, all these elements together, combined with what we have seen happening in the last year, give us confidence that not only the market grows, but our ability to capture that market is there. And it's pretty much across the board. You saw us talk about service. You talk about infrastructure solution. Mentioned power and thermal. By all means, not because power and thermal are not central. They are absolutely central. Tomorrow, many of you, those of you that are here in person and will be at SC24 with us, will get a liquid cooling and a thermal chain or power train indigestion, if you will. So, our portfolio is very well balanced. And it's supporting exactly where the industry is going. And it's not static. We think that the conditions and our play has strengthened in the last year and has the increase.
Thank you. You highlighted services.
I think HVAC companies are really highlighting data center opportunity being a lot more complex, a lot more services. I mean, my understanding historically, your service operations sort of focused on large UPS. But as thermal becomes more and more complex with liquid cooling, what kind of opportunities does it present for Vertiv? And is it accretive to margin?
Service is accretive to margin. In general, we really like the service margins. Service is first and foremost. And you guys feel free to chip in. But service is first and foremost enabling the growth. We heard it from Chad earlier, how important it is the service capability upfront for thermal, for power, for everything. Thermal is an area where we are strong. Thermal services, we are strong both in deployment and during the life cycle.
The fact that technologies like the CoolPhase Flex, chillers, liquid cooling, all technologies that are very critical. It's an area where our touch rates are quite high. It is very comparable to the power part, the UPS. Critical parts of the infrastructure. I don't know if Anand or Scott, you want to chip in here?
Sure. I think, as Gio said, everything's getting more and more critical. What we are finding is that with customers, the largest customers were doing a lot more life cycle services just beyond the traditional contracts and T&M. For example, you saw some examples today, site-based services. We have people on site working with customers. Predictive and analytic services, we're looking at how you can do condition-based maintenance and others.
So, I think the level of engagement that we have to ensure that you can deliver with speed. You're doing more work in the factories, pre-tested, pre-qualified, and then adding value to customers on site. Because the load that you design for on day one is not the same on day two and day three. So, I think the whole life cycle engagement. So, it's very deep. And to your point earlier, just to correct you a little bit, we've always had thermal services, not just UPS, and globally. So, it's been part of our portfolio always. Sometimes you do it direct. Sometimes you do it through partners. But it's always us having our folks who train and enable the industry. As you move to liquid, obviously, it gets even more critical with the handling of fluids and making sure the standards are set.
So, that's where we are leading the way. Scott?
I feel like you guys touched it pretty well. But it's three things, really, with service content. It's uncertainty of this new application, customers getting comfortable with liquid cooling. It's driving complexity in the sites, which really creates more of a bond for service. And it's really the scale. The scale and size of these sites is lending itself to new and different service models where we have people that don't leave a site for large infrastructure and large campuses because it becomes a much more repeatable model.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you. On slide 21, you provide a dissipation roadmap that points to a quadrupling of AI GPU rack densities. How should we think about that in the context of your $3.5 million of content per megawatt over that time frame? Does that increase linearly?
Does it remain constant or something in between?
I think it's premature. A lot of the roadmaps and the technology is being developed now to support that level. Whenever the complexity increases, whenever the stakes increase, and again, think about how critical is a one megawatt, using the example, extreme. How critical a one megawatt rack is in terms of the importance of that work exactly to spec the whole time. So, that type of environment that is complex from a technology standpoint, it's a rich environment for us. And it's rich not just at the rack level, but across the entire infrastructure. The challenges in terms of power, in terms of cooling, across the entire power train and thermal chain are significantly increasing. The service opportunity is all the more reason valid.
So, while we believe it is early stage, we like what we see in terms of evolution of the industry, in terms of the opportunity for us.
Congrats on buying that blueprint in last December. I think your key competitor just paid about $1 billion for CDU company. But good move by you guys. Last year, you said like 15 gigawatts of AI kind of cumulatively added. I think that number stretched and then evolved to about 75 gigawatts over a five to six-year period. You're now saying 100 gigawatts over the next five years. You're saying 13 to 20 a year, and just doing kind of like the simple math on what your content is and what that TAM would be, which is just mind-bogglingly enormous relative to the U.S. installed base.
How does that only translate into like $300 million of extra growth for you guys over that time period, that long-term algo going up by like 3% a year? It just seems like something is lost there between the enormity of the opportunity that we're just at the cusp of and this kind of long-term growth number that is left.
So, I think we have to do the math, the exact math on the numbers. Last year, de facto, and people will keep me honest in terms of exact numbers, we're really thinking about a total 75 gigawatts being built in the period from 2023 to 2028 at the time. But now we've seen an acceleration there. And then the period that we, if I remember correctly, the slide, slide 21, I didn't know it was slide 21. But slide 21 is, again, 2023 to 2029 right now.
So, certainly, the opportunity is big. So, I agree 100% with you. But at the same time, we want to be relatively measured in the way we look at that. And that is a number that doesn't include all the headwinds that the industry will experience. The number will be bigger than the growth rates that we have shared with you on page on slide 23. Let's see if it's right. On slide 23. Fantastic. We will see it coming. And we will be ready for a further acceleration.
And then, sorry, David, is there anything from a mixed perspective as you get more into modular here? What's kind of the business model like relative to selling just the components? What's kind of the lift on content yet? Are you going to take a little bit of a hit on the margin on that front when it comes to modular?
When you look at the business from a system perspective, we're actually adding value to the customer to combine the different components as opposed to standalone thermal, standalone power. Looking at it as a system perspective and focusing on densification, we actually look at that as potentially margin enhancing. So, we certainly wouldn't expect that to be dilutive. I think it's still playing out. We have to see how it's received and what the dynamics are with the market. But we certainly wouldn't expect that to be dilutive.
And maybe just a follow-up on that point and then a different set of questions. On the modularization, it would seem that that would shift revenue from the field to your factories, right? More Vertiv content, less work by the electricians, the plumbers in the field. If you guys scaled, what kind of incremental revenue opportunity that might be?
Well, it's all based and it's all factored in the numbers that you see here. But that shift from field to our factory is there. And I think we believe it's a shift that benefits the market in general, certainly benefits our customers as enables them speed that would otherwise not be possible. And again, sometimes it's almost sheer capacity that is not available in field. But let's see how that plays out. Let's see what the exact mix will be as we go through the future years. And yeah, we're still early stage. We have our assumption as to how that grows, of course, in the five years. But we will be ready today and we'll be ready for this shift to continue and accelerate if we, as we believe, it will happen.
Then I just want to talk about the constraints for a moment.
And I think to Steve's point, maybe there's clearly upside, but there's also these hurdles the industry needs to get over. When you look at what's outside your control in terms of constraints, power, field labor, these sorts of things, what do you most worry about as you're planning CapEx, but look at maybe hurdles that you need to get over? And maybe we'll just add Mexico and tariffs and everything on top of that. You've made a big investment down there. Maybe give us some thoughts.
So, multiple questions here. In terms of we were talking about the growth and the capacity. I think that's pretty much as we described it. When we talk about the investments, we are invested for growth in multiple parts of the world. I think we have resilience built in.
Let's see what the future will look like also from tariffs and all the commercial dynamics. I think we have proven our ability to scale and be flexible. And our footprint is certainly supporting our model. Hey, guys. Anything you guys? OK.
All right. Well, we'll continue. Noah Kaye, OpCo. Guys, thanks for this presentation and taking the questions. I want to ask you about liquid cooling market share gain opportunities and problem solving. It's been in the news for many months now, some of the challenges around liquid cooling that the customers have had as recently as this weekend. And so, can you give some insight to us? I'm sure we'll see more of it tomorrow. But for those on the webcast and for all of us in the room, talk through your perspective on some of these challenges. How Vertiv is playing a role in solving those challenges?
What do you think it means for your share gain opportunity, and if you can put in any numbers around where you expect market share to trend over time, great.
Sure. Yeah, I don't think I'll necessarily have an opportunity to talk market share specifically, but I think there's a tremendous amount of scrutiny around kind of the advent of higher density applications and liquid cooling. It's somewhat new and uncomfortable for a lot of the industry players, the folks that are deploying and the folks that are building it right now. I think it really just speaks to the criticality of the application, and really, from our perspective, I think that really reinforces kind of the depth of expertise in the system level thinking, especially as it relates to point products around liquid cooling and CDUs.
Thinking through the entire chain from kind of the heat removal at the chip level to how you're going to manage it at a rack level to where it's going to go at a row and a pod level, ultimately to be rejected or reused at a site level. All of those pieces interplay with each other, and all of those things matter, so, as you think about some of the challenges that are happening right now as we're trying to ramp and deploy kind of at an ecosystem level, I think it reinforces kind of the critical interconnection points of all of those things. And for us, it really just reinforces the system level thinking. Scott. Oh, thanks.
Oh, sorry, guys. Just a little bit to follow up on that question, but how important to your 2025 numbers is a successful ramp and production ramp in Blackwell?
The industry is accelerating towards an infrastructure that is capable of handling higher loads. We do not believe that kind of how the ramp-up happens exactly changes the direction that the industry has taken. So, you heard everyone talk about data centers that are future-proof, that are capable of handling a mixed load, and those decisions, infrastructural decisions are made today, were made yesterday, will be made tomorrow with 20 years in sight, so we all know in the industry that those loads will happen. Whether they happen one month earlier or three months earlier or three months later, that really will not, we believe, from what we see today, will not change the pace at which the industry is designing in the new technology in their future products.
And does that essentially mean that the colo and the hyperscaler needs will converge and they'll be very similar down the road? Or do you continue to expect them to have a different set of needs? And I would say historically, you guys have probably played to the strength of the colo guys a little bit more than hyperscale. But maybe that's changed.
I think we really balance things. But Scott, you want to take it?
Yeah, I think the ecosystem is certainly evolving. And I think we see a large portion of our traditional colo and wholesale data center builders that are building for hyperscale. So, in many ways, those needs and those applications and architectures are converging in a way. There's still certainly kind of the broad approach to more enterprise-level data center building that's still going to take place within colo, which will be different.
It'll be similar needs, I think, similar infrastructure that's going to be deployed, but different scales and different ultimate kind of value levers that they're thinking about. And then we have kind of the emerging trend of, I would say, the new ecosystem of more AI cloud type of providers that are coming up that are going to be somewhat a mix of both of those worlds, somewhat simplistically. But I think the big picture for us is there's a broad set of portfolio needs across each of those. But the general trends around the IT and the infrastructure they are going to be deploying is going to be different than the traditional stack that is being deployed today.
So, a lot of the trends we just talked about in terms of the portfolio needs and the level of engagement we need to have with those customers, it is converging towards we need to do more with them. We need to do more with those customers and kind of take the portfolio and our solution set forward with them.
Yeah, I'd like to add three things to what Scott said. I think the first one is, obviously, the SLAs that hyperscalers hold themselves to versus the colos will always be different. Ok, so while the problems are the same, how they approach it, I think there's some differences. And I think that's where the whole development activity and the problem solving that we do with both, while the questions are similar, sometimes the answer is slightly different. Ok, so I think that's one point.
Second piece is for the colos. There is an investment return horizon, which is, as Gio mentioned, 15-20 years. Now, the IT cycle could be two, three, four years. So, part of the future-proofing discussions are a lot more relevant with the colos, and we spend a lot of time working with them on that activity, saying, guys, how do we deploy? I mean, the example you saw with Compass. OK, the air-liquid ratio will change, but the product set with Flex allows you to do that. Right? So, that becomes key, and the third part was you mentioned the difference of the hyperscalers. Well, one of the things that Scott and team did really well, and we don't give them enough credit, I guess. Here is a conscious hyperscale strategy.
We engaged with them very, very deliberately last year, saying, guys, before the AI wave started, how do you make sure our technical experts are sitting and having those conversations? And now we are at a seat at the table as a development partner. Whether we get the full share of wallet across all products or not, we're having the conversations, which really helps us. I think that adds a little color to what we talked about.
Hey, guys, back here in the cheap seats. Just one on the CoolPhase Flex, really interesting product announcement today. Are you guys the only one in the market supplying this? What do you see as the market opportunity? Just confirming, this isn't like an exclusive partnership with Compass, right? You just jointly developed it. Sorry, a lot of parts of this question.
But is that also something that you think hyperscalers will be interested in? Thank you.
You want to take it, Scott?
Certainly. Yeah, glad to see kind of maybe the inner workings of some of that development and that partnership, get a chance to see public daylight here. I think a lot of the advantage of that product, I guess maybe the first part of your question is it's an exclusive Vertiv product. We're not aware of anything kind of resembling that approach to the market at that size or scale in a packaged unit. We think it hits tremendously on a lot of our value levers and value proposition. But the big thing, especially from Compass and our development with them, is the flexibility in having that real option matters.
One level of uncertainty that we're trying to plan around in this ecosystem, one area that we hit a little bit, is the next three years of how much air versus liquid and how do I need to plan the sites and at what levels of capacity do I need to go to. When you have a facility the size of what Compass tends to deploy around their campuses, those are big decisions that are somewhat irreversible. And this product really allows them to tackle both in a way that doesn't exist in the market today, which is, from my perspective, really very cool. I think, relatively speaking, as we start thinking about putting that flexibility into the product, yes, it does kind of raise the upfront cost of a product. You're over-provisioning at a product level.
But it's preventing them from over-provisioning at a site level or a campus level, which has tremendous value that we're helping them unlock. I do think that approach and that technology and really those advantages of that product set is relevant to the broader ecosystem and the broader customer base here.
And it's not exclusive. So, we can. And there are other customers interested, so.
Hey, guys. Michael Elias from TD Cowen. Scott, I may have asked you this the last time we got together. But when I think of the data center industry, like U.S., there was 1.9 gigawatts of leasing done across two deals. So, there's a concentration of large deals at the top. When I think of what some of your competitors have done with some of the companies that you highlighted today, they've built production capacity on site at the campus that's essentially being built out.
As you think about driving to the 25% margins, is that something that you guys could look to do, essentially build production next to the campus of one of these large data centers? And if so, any color around what the margin implications could be? Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take that. Thank you. Direct it directly to me.
Happy to. But the question was Michael's question explicitly for you. So.
I appreciate that. And I think absolutely all of those different kind of operating models and modes and levers are part of our thought process. I think Gio and David hit very well that flexibility around our operations, having in-region, for-region, kind of having very close collaborative engagement with our key customers, if there are ability to do things kind of differently or more efficiently, those are all things that are on the table for us.
I would also argue we've effectively started down that process with our service business as well in terms of staffing and dedicating service personnel and service content dedicated to customers and dedicated to certain campuses and regions, so it's kind of a natural evolution of that model. I think as the scale continues to ramp here and we do see just the size of facilities, that all of those things need to be part of our tool set and our portfolio offering to be able to kind of unlock that value,
and as you have seen, some of the relationships are so strong that everything is always on the table, and the way we're operating now is because we mutually believe that at this stage, the current operating model is the best for the partnership.
But absolutely open to change the operating model as and when that first and foremost creates an advantage for our customer. So, absolutely.
Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs, thanks very much for hosting us and doing the presentation. You spoke to the potential for M&A today, and you characterized it as bolt-ons. Given the financial capacity that you detailed, the company will have. I'm curious if you're also considering doing larger scale acquisitions. And if so, what would be some of the key criteria you'd evaluate when considering one of those perhaps larger deals? Thank you.
If we go back to the last three years, E&I was a large deal for us. And it was a large deal that added capabilities and a piece of portfolio. Now, probably similarly large deals will be priced somewhat differently today. But as long as things make sense, I talked about preserving our DNA.
I talked about being coherent with our value creation framework. We will be open to something of a larger magnitude than what, as per comments earlier, we've done in the last 12 months, of course. But again, we like our business model. We like the type of value proposition we bring to our customers and to you guys, quite honestly. So, we want to preserve our DNA. We have an agility and a firing power that is unprecedented for us. And we will use it wisely, decisively when the time comes and when the right opportunity is available.
Yeah, thanks, Brett Linzey, Mizuho. Just want to come back to the opportunity per megawatt, the $2.75-$3.5. How should we think about the profitability in that context as we shift to more AI, more GPU? And what is your gross margin entitlement over the horizon period?
Should it grow above and expand above operating margins? Any context would be great.
So, I'll take the first part, and I'll say it's probably we wouldn't unpack that or over-analyze what exactly the difference is between the margin opportunity and potential on the 2.7 or the 2.75 or 3.5. Of course, multiple technologies, multiple domains, different markets, and also, that is a representation of many types of build and design philosophies, so there is a lot into that. Generally speaking, AI brings complexity, exaggerates the importance of domain expertise, exaggerates the importance of technology, speed, and scale, and are all things that are favorable from a margin standpoint in general, because it's where we deliver the biggest value to our customer, and again, we always think in terms of the value that we unleash for the customer.
I don't know if you want to kind of add anything to this in terms of modeling.
Yeah, just in general. So, we don't model based on an accounting play. So, I say I don't look at gross margin and SG&A until the night before the earnings release, because we don't run our business that way. We run it with variable contribution and fixed cost, regardless of where it falls on the P&L. And if you look at our framework, it's pretty easy to get to the component that is fixed cost management, which is the operational leverage. And then what is the variable contribution margin, which is really driven by productivity and commercial execution. There is some overlap. But as it relates to delineate between gross margin, SG&A, or what have you, it is more driven by the framework of fixed costs and contribution margin.
And this will be our last question to round out the night.
Hi, thanks. My question is kind of in regards to customer success and how you think about planning. I mean, you've done a great job of bringing on capacity. You've participated in what is quite a tight market. And certainly, if your gigawatt forecasts come to fruition, it'll continue to be a tight market. But capacity will come online from your competitors. And increasingly, we've seen a lot of challenges with execution at an industry level, right, in terms of delivering product on time and delivering product that has strong quality control. How do you think about investing in that customer's success? And how do you think, how does it evolve your pricing strategy as capacity does come online for the industry?
How do you maintain the right value proposition with your customers in context of kind of all the challenges that the industry's had over the last two years?
I think there are many aspects to this question. Thank you for that. First of all, let's say on a longer term, not a longer term, let's say projecting the customer experience. We go back to what we heard, being aware of what's coming from an AI infrastructure standpoint. We heard it from our customers here. So, that element of not just knowing what technology is needed today, but what the technology will be that is needed out there is an enormously important element in the customer experience and customer relationship. Again, many of us have been operating in the industry for decades. And those have been decades where the speed of evolution of the infrastructure was glacial on a good day.
So, people could just ignore what's going on from an IT standpoint. Now, IT refresh cycles are probably happening for a data center every two, three years. And they will be massively different. So, having someone like us who can work with them in what future readiness looks like, enabling their future readiness is absolutely fundamental. And someone who can make that capacity over time available. A lot of our customers are not just building a data center and then, OK, I'll come back in three, four years. Yes, there is a part of the market, the enterprise market. But the part of the market is accelerating, as we saw, are people that have a roadmap that is out three, four years of deployment.
When they design and lock in technology, they want to make sure that that technology and that technology provider is available to follow that, to support them across the entire journey. Certainty that we will be there for them three months from now, six months from now, nine months, three years from now is absolutely essential. Then the value proposition, again, is around technology, as I was saying, is around service level from on-time delivery, ability to support them on site. Building is complex. When you're building a 50- or 200-megawatt data center, there is a lot going on. On-time delivery, being able to rely on the fact that we do what we say we will do is of the essence. Quality is absolutely of the essence as well.
Quality in what we deliver and ability to ensure that quality and performance across the life cycle of their systems. So, when we talk internally in terms of customer experience, we really talk in terms of technology. Our mantra is technology today and tomorrow. It is uncompromised quality and uncompromised service level and speed. So, those are the elements. Are we always perfect? Not always perfect. Are we obsessively focused on continuously improving that? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, but these tenets of value creation for our customers are very clear across the organization.
I think that will conclude our Q&A. So, with that, we'll turn it back over to Gio to close us out. So, thanks.
All right. I will be brief. Worry not. I only have 25 slides.
So, with that, I'd like to have our value framework back on screen because it's very important for us. We saw it working well for us and for the industry. And we'll stay true to it as we go ahead in this fabulous adventure. Again, thank you for being with us today. We're super excited with where the industry is. Actually, it's so much fun to see the technology evolve and being at the exact center of this evolution, time of our collective lives, I must say. And a huge thank you to our customer partners. You saw it today. It's so important. That has never been so important. But the biggest shout-out, of course, goes to the Vertiv team for the phenomenal progress. But as I always like to tell everyone at Vertiv, be pleased, but don't be satisfied because there's so much more ahead for us.
And it's so exhilarating. So, with that, thank you very much. And I think we are now closing our webinar.