- In today’s CEO Daily: An interview with Ecolab CEO Christophe Beck
- The big leadership story: Dow CEO Karen Carter leads the manufacturer into a new era.
- The markets: Up globally as investors rediscover their AI optimism.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. We’re seeing pushback in the AI revolution. Some of that comes from concerns about the technology–more than 1,200 employees of the world’s leading AI labs signed a statement this week asking the U.S. government to help build tools to slow down development. Workers and even leaders are pushing policymakers to address the impact on jobs. And there’s the growing controversy around the energy costs and environmental impact of data centers, which continue to expand with U.S. demand projected to double between 2025 and 2027.
Christophe Beck, CEO of Ecolab (No. 280 on the Fortune 500) told me that he’s spent $7 billion in the last six months to address another problem: water usage, as a single facility can currently consume millions of gallons per day. Beck recently closed a $4.75 billion acquisition of Calgary liquid-cooling company CoolIT, and is making related investments around it to help expand Ecolab’s role in high-tech water usage.
It’s an interesting example of how established players can have a stake in an AI-driven future as the acquisition gives this 103-year-old company a deeper role in not just treating water but helping design how chips are cooled, energy is used and the systems are run. “The whole idea is helping companies produce better products, outcomes, yield, and data in ways that are respectful of communities and natural resources,” he said. “We protect a third of the world’s food production, a quarter of the power that’s generated, 1.7 billion people from infection, and enough water for the drinking needs of 850 million.”
CoolIT will help Ecolab double down on its fast-growing and high-margin business of providing ultra-pure water for chips, cooling water for power generation and water management. The acquisition gives it access to a mission-critical layer as CoolIT uses closed-loop technology that captures heat from high-density chips without spraying or evaporating water into the air. “We can generate power, we can’t generate water … we have communities pushing back for a bunch of right reasons,” he said. “Now we have a solution that’s really allowing us to make data centers water-neutral.”
And, Beck adds, it reinforces Ecolab’s sustainability goals and brand promise of “protecting what’s vital.” The company’s 2030 ambition, laid out in 2019, is to cut carbon emissions in half, help customers annually conserve 300 billion gallons of water and protect 2 billion people from foodborne illnesses. As he put it: “What’s not to like? More money, more growth, better impact and unleashing the best industries in the world.”
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
Dow’s change management
Karen Carter, Dow's first female and Black CEO, took over July 1 amid layoffs, plant closures, and a corporate restructuring. Dow posted its most profitable quarter in four years, helped by Iran-war-driven oil prices boosting North American margins. Carter is pushing cost cuts, AI-driven data center growth, and productivity gains to sustain the turnaround.
Amazon's cloud boom
Amazon shares jumped more than 9% after AWS revenue hit $42.2 billion in the second quarter, up 37% year over year, marking its fastest growth in 18 quarters and its fifth straight quarter of acceleration. "AWS is now a $169 billion dollar annualized revenue run rate business, which, for perspective, would place it 24th on the Fortune 500 list if it was a standalone company," CEO Andy Jassy said.
Tim Cook warns of a ‘hundred year flood’
In his last earnings call before handing the CEO role to John Ternus, Tim Cook warned of severe supply constraints and said iPhone growth will slow to a "mid-teens" pace next quarter as Apple shares fell as much as 8%. "We did it because we're in what I would characterize as a hundred year flood on the memory pricing," Cook said.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.56% this morning. The last session closed up 1.66%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.80% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.75% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 4.03%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 17.91%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.85%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.10%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.23%. Bitcoin was at $64K.
Around the watercooler
New York Mets tap Novig as prediction market partner as MLB embraces new betting sector by Camila Grigera Naón
Asia drives 60% of global growth, but the region’s CEOs can’t escape geopolitics. Here’s how they can stay competitive by Yasushi Sasaki
Microsoft’s $480 billion rally fuels a debate: Financial nihilism or the true AI moat finally coming into view? by Nick Lichtenberg
‘I’m just stuck’: Meet the former OpenAI researcher sitting on $700K of equity that he says is overvalued by Eva Roytburg
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
