Before I was an editor at Mission Critical, I worked for another BNP Media publication, The NEWS. It covers everything air conditioning, heating, and refrigeration. And, for those of you who don’t already know, the AHR Expo is the largest event for the HVACR industry, so, naturally, I would attend every year.

Even though cooling is one of the most essential aspects of the mission-critical industry, I stopped going to this event when I switched magazines. Why? Well, because data centers were never a major focus at the show. Sure, there were manufacturers who had some “precision cooling” equipment, but it was just there — never in the spotlight.

I recently took on the role of editor-in-chief of Engineered Systems, and while I was happy to join the new book for several reasons, returning to the AHR Expo was definitely at the top of my list.

The event was as “big” as I remember it, in several senses of the word: recording-breaking attendance, hosted at one of the largest convention centers in the U.S., and innovations abound. But, still, I found it to be smaller in a few ways too. I noticed a lot of exhibitors only had one or two pieces of equipment on display rather than a typical full booth. What’s even more surprising and “smaller” in my opinion, is that the exhibitors that did have more equipment on the floor acted like everything except for the heat pumps and data center cooling equipment was invisible. There were really only two buzzwords this year: electrification and uptime.

But, if you ask me, that small area of focus is big news — in terms of raising awareness for our industry at least. Although I didn’t hear “mission critical” as much as I heard “data center,” it was nice to see the shift away from “precision cooling,” which can be vague.

It got me thinking the maybe the AHR Expo won’t just be a tradeshow for those in the HVACR industry in the future — maybe it will be a space where the mission-critical and HVACR industries converge. Out of curiosity, how many of you attended this year or in the past? And what are your thoughts about the data center presence at the show?