One day after the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.5% rate in the second quarter, nVent, a global company with its management office in St. Louis Park, reported Friday that its second-quarter sales jumped by 53%.

The company is part of the rapidly growing data center economy—those businesses that provide products and services to build and operate data centers. In contrast, the U.S. gross domestic product figure released Thursday documented a relatively flat economy that’s burdened by inflation and the effects of the Iran War.

Sales are so robust at nVent that the company announced Friday it will add 160,000 square feet of manufacturing space at a second Blaine location to produce liquid cooling products for data centers.

That new Blaine facility is expected to employ more than 200 people and begin production in the first half of 2027. This is the third time in three years that nVent is increasing manufacturing capacity and jobs in the Twin Cities suburbs. In 2025, it added 140,000 square feet in Anoka, and that was followed by a 117,000-square-foot expansion in Blaine this year.

nVent, with its principal office in London, was spun off from Pentair in 2018. The global company has more than 11,000 employees and continues to make new hires as the business grows. By April of this year, it employed nearly 2,100 people in Minnesota. About 1,500 of them work at two nVent locations in Anoka.

“Expanding our data center capacity reflects the growing need for liquid cooling solutions and the strength of customer demand,” Sara Zawoyski, president of nVent Systems Protection, said in a prepared statement. “With more than a decade of liquid cooling leadership, deep technical expertise, and a proven ability to manufacture at scale, nVent is well positioned to lead the AI-driven shift to liquid cooling and high-performance computing.”

The torrid pace of growth at nVent was apparent in many of the numbers it released Friday about its second-quarter performance.

Sales increased 53% to $1.5 billion in the second quarter. “Our portfolio transformation continued to drive performance as we had another tremendous quarter, with record sales and earnings per share,” Beth Wozniak, nVent chair and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “We saw significant data center growth and new products contributed more than 30 points to sales growth.” The company’s quarterly operating income was $301 million, up 92% from $157 million in the second quarter of 2025.

In an early 2026 interview with Twin Cities Business, Wozniak commented on the fast company growth she was leading. “At the time that we spun [in 2018], our complete data center business was less than $100 million [a year], and today it’s $1 billion,” she said.

In that same interview, she said the company’s longer-term goal is to reach $10 billion in annual nVent revenue. The company’s portfolio has been modified to focus on high-growth products and industries.

In Friday’s news release, Wozniak emphasized that the company’s excellent performance is the result of nVent employees delivering what its customers want and need. “As a result of our strong second-quarter performance and momentum across our portfolio, we are significantly raising our full-year sales and EPS guidance,” Wozniak said.

The company’s new estimate for full-year 2026 sales growth is 37% to 39%. Previous nVent guidance was 26% to 28%.

The company had expected full-year 2026 earnings per share to range from $3.68 to $3.78 on a GAAP basis and adjusted EPS of $4.45 to $4.55.

On Friday, nVent boosted its EPS guidance for full-year 2026 to $4.29 to $4.39 on a GAAP basis and adjusted EPS to $5.00 to $5.10.