⚠ Greenfield Is Wide OpenModerate threat

Mission-critical switching costs are powerful, but they protect the equipment already installed, not the next order — and much of the AI build-out is greenfield, brand-new data centers being designed from scratch. At that greenfield moment, the incumbency advantage is at its weakest: there is no installed base to defend, no running system that is too risky to disturb, and the customer is free to evaluate Vertiv, Schneider, Eaton, and specialists on the merits. The high switching costs that lock in the existing base do little to guarantee that Vertiv wins the fresh design.

This matters because the explosive growth is disproportionately in new construction, where the competition is most open. Vertiv must win those greenfield designs on product, price, reference-design position, relationships, and deployment capability — the same contest as any vendor — and only after it wins does the switching-cost moat close around the new installed base. The switching costs are real and they compound the value of every win, but they are a moat that must be re-earned at each new facility, which is why they support a strong narrow position rather than an unassailable one — every greenfield data center in the AI build-out is a fresh contest¹.