Jabil Joins the Data Center Manufacturing Gold Rush: So That Happened

Editor’s note: Welcome to So That Happened, our editors’ takes on things going on in the manufacturing world that deserve some extra attention. This will appear regularly in the Member’s Only section of the site.

Caterpillar Inches Toward Closing the Skills Gap

As part of its five-year, $100 million workforce pledge, Caterpillar has announced Indiana as one of the first states to receive funding to enable skills training for future advanced manufacturing workers in the U.S. The company has committed up to $5 million to training initiatives across Indiana, and future investment pledges in other states will be announced soon.

"We have our experts working on innovative training and resources to help skill and inform the next generation on how to navigate the worksite of tomorrow, and we're excited to be starting here in Indiana to enable U.S. workers to enter high-quality jobs in the American manufacturing industry,” says Caterpillar Chief Human Resources Officer Christy Pambianchi.

Caterpillar pledged $100 million towards manufacturing workforce development efforts over the next five years as part of the company’s centennial celebration earlier this year.

"As an industry leader, Caterpillar understands the urgency of preparing the next generation with the capabilities required for the jobs of tomorrow," says Jaime Mineart, chief technology officer at Caterpillar.

—Anna Smith

When Good Weather And a More Stable Power Grid Are Bad For Business

The ongoing massive investments in our electric grid—be it for data centers specifically or the electrification of our lives more generally—is an unalloyed good, right? Maybe not if part of your business is selling generators for when the power goes out.

The leaders of Generac Holdings Inc. last week reported third-quarter earnings that missed analysts’ forecasts by a mile, in large part, because sales of its residential products fell 13% year over year. Chairman, President and CEO Aaron Jagdfeld told analysts that was because of “a power outage environment that was significantly below our long-term baseline average and the lowest third quarter of total outage hours that we’ve experienced since 2015.”

Tough comparisons to last year, when multiple hurricanes made U.S. landfall, didn’t make things easy for the Generac team. Still, Jagdfeld pointed out that all of the company’s regions saw a broad-based drop in sales of residential units from last year and added that consumers also didn’t pick up as many portable generators or schedule as many in-home consultations as in mid-2024. One interpretation of those data poins could be that people are generally feeling better about what their utilities are doing to make their power grids more resilient.

Jagdfeld remains upbeat about the long-term picture for Generac’s residential products, which through the first nine months of this year accounted for 54% of the company’s revenues and 84% of its adjusted EBITDA. Outage-inducing severe-weather events will return to their historical (rising) trend line, he said, and his team has added nearly 300 dealers to its network—which now numbers about 9,400—over the past year.

He's also betting that utility capex simply won’t be able to keep up with projected demand growth.

“Lower power quality and higher power prices will be an ongoing challenge,” he told analysts Oct. 29. “At the same time, the massive increase in data center power demand is expected to further stress the already fragile power grid by amplifying the growing electricity supply-demand imbalance.”

— Geert De Lombaerde

Yay AVs, Boo Androids

You might get more access to autonomous vehicles next year but humanoid robots in factories still are a pipe dream, according to Forrester’s new report, “Predictions 2026: Smart Manufacturing and Mobility” released last week.

Their predictions for next year:

• Half of global manufacturers will focus more on supply chain resilience than procuring the cheapest parts
• Autonomous vehicle deployments will spread beyond China and the United States
• U.S. manufacturers will be particularly concerned with reskilling operators to work in more advanced facilities
• Don’t expect humanoid robots to make a splash

Also, apparently Europe’s new care safety assessment program, called Euro NCAP, in January won’t give its highest safety rating to cars without mechanical buttons for functions like turn signals or windshield wipers, which will affect the spread of digital screens in vehicles.

—Dennis Scimeca

Manufacturing Expansion Scorecard

U.S. manufacturing expansion showed solid growth in October 2025, with 131 new planned manufacturing facilities announced: 41 new construction, 50 expansion, 66 renovation or equipment upgrades and 17 plant closures, according to Industrial SalesLeads’ latest report.

The past five months have shown slight growth, and actually improved year-over-year as well, with 118 new projects in October 2024.

Jabil Expanding Presence in Data Center Market

There seems to be no end to manufacturers wanting a piece of the growing data center movement or expanding their existing presence.  For example, see Eaton’s purchase of Boyd Corp.’s thermal business and, as we reported in our last So That Happened, GE Vernova’s  buyout of its joint venture partner in grid equipment supplier Prolec GE.

Now we have contract manufacturer Jabil Inc. The company announced this week that it would purchase Hanley Energy Group, a manufacturer of energy management and critical power solutions for the data center infrastructure market, for approximately $725 million plus other considerations.

Hanley’s knowledge will expand Jabil’s existing power management solutions, Jabil said.

“Its expertise in designing, building, and commissioning turnkey mission-critical power solutions from the grid all the way to the hyperscale data center complements Jabil’s growing capabilities in AI data center infrastructure,” said Ed Bailey, Jabil senior vice president and chief technology officer, Intelligent Infrastructure.

Ireland-based Hanley Energy has U.S. headquarters in Ashburn, Va., and employs about 850 globally, according to its website.

The $725 million all-cash deal includes contingent consideration up to $58 million, subject to achieving future revenue thresholds. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026.

—Jill Jusko