Carrier has expanded its R&D capacity at the company’s European Centre of Excellence in Montluel, France.
Carrier will expand R&D into high performance cooling and heating technologies aimed at data centres, industry and large commercial buildings.
The investment comes as Europe’s market accelerates towards electrification and lower-impact refrigerants, driven by decarbonisation policies, EcoDesign efficiency thresholds and the ongoing F-Gas revision; testing performed in accordance with Eurovent-certified performance methodologies at Carrier’s Montluel site.
According to JLL's 2026 Global Data Center Outlook, EMEA data centres will add 13 GW of new supply by 2030, with growth concentrated in established European hubs such as London, Frankfurt, and Paris, fuelled by hyperscaler demand and AI infrastructure investment.
The $US14.16 million investment will be used to further develop Carrier’s next-generation testing laboratory at the Montluel site strengthening the company’s industrial and R&D capabilities.
Carrier’s executive director for Commercial Business Line & Data Centres Europe, Bertrand Rotagnon said the new test laboratory facilities are Eurovent certified.
“We’re raising the bar on how we support customers and partners in Europe,” he said.
“The combination of higher test capacity and advanced environmental control let us validate performance with zero tolerance, earlier and bring solutions to market faster, giving customers the confidence to move ahead on high-efficiency cooling and heating for data centres, industry and district heating.”
The test room provides extended testing capabilities including:
- Air-cooled chiller up to 3,200 kW
- Air source heat pump up to 1,500 kW
- Water source Chiller / heat pump up to 6,000 kW
- Ambient conditions from −20°C to +60°C with humidity control
- Water flow rate up to 1,600 m³/h
The director of systems engineering for Carrier Climate Solutions Europe, Nicolas Fonte, said the new testing facility expands the engineering team's ability to test and validate chillers and heat pumps for the most critical operating conditions.
“This new equipment enables us to validate performance with high precision of next-generation chillers and large heat pump platforms supporting increasingly customers' requests for future infrastructures,” Fonte said.