ABB acquires IPEC
27/03/2026
ABB has agreed to acquire UK-based electrical diagnostics specialist IPEC in a deal that expands its monitoring and predictive maintenance offering for data centres, utilities and other critical infrastructure operators.
The acquisition will add IPEC’s partial discharge monitoring technology to ABB’s Electrification Service portfolio. The systems monitor electrical assets continuously and identify early-stage insulation faults that can precede equipment failure and unplanned outages.
The companies expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2026. ABB did not disclose financial terms.
IPEC, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Manchester, focuses on the early detection of failures in medium- and high-voltage equipment. Its monitoring platforms track electrical infrastructure around the clock and use artificial intelligence and analytics on partial discharge data to flag potential issues.
ABB has stated that the deal responds to growing demand from operators of data centres, hospitals, utilities and other facilities that face high financial and safety risks from downtime. These sectors run large volumes of critical electrical equipment such as switchgear and cables, where insulation breakdown can cause outages and damage.
ABB cited industry data that links partial discharge activity to a large share of asset failures. Partial discharge refers to small electrical sparks within insulation that develop before full equipment breakdown occurs. ABB claims that such activity causes more than 80% of asset failures that occur ahead of unexpected outages.
IPEC’s systems detect this activity and feed it into diagnostics software. Asset owners can then schedule repair or replacement work before a fault develops into a failure.
ABB has said that the integration of IPEC’s technology will extend its predictive maintenance services. The company forecasts that customers can cut downtime by up to 90% and maintenance costs by as much as 85% when they shift from reactive repairs to planned interventions based on continuous monitoring.
Stuart Thompson, President of Electrification Service at ABB, linked the acquisition to cost and risk pressures on operators of critical infrastructure.
IPEC employs around 70 people across operations in Oxford (UK), Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Sweden, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Texas (USA). It grew from a UK utility customer base and now supplies monitoring systems to clients globally.
The company stated that data centres now represent its largest and fastest-growing segment, particularly in the USA. That customer base will give ABB a stronger position in the fast-expanding data centre market in the USA, which is investing in electrical reliability as facilities scale up to handle artificial intelligence workloads and cloud services.
IPEC’s flagship monitoring platform can track up to 128 connection points at the same time. The system conducts 24/7 surveillance of switchgear, cables and other high-voltage equipment and uses the company’s proprietary DeCIFer algorithm to analyse partial-discharge data. The algorithm identifies patterns and anomalies that suggest insulation degradation.
Asset managers use diagnostics reports to prioritise maintenance, replace ageing components and extend the operating life of transformers, switchgear and cables. ABB claims that this can add decades to the service life of some infrastructure.
