TES Group, a Northern Ireland engineering firm based in Cookstown, has been acquired by Legrand, one of France's largest industrial businesses, as demand soars for equipment vital to the artificial intelligence sector, according to BBC.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but the price is likely to have exceeded £100 million. Foresight, a private equity firm which backed TES two years ago, said it had made a fourfold return on its initial investment.

The deal was driven by TES's expertise in designing and manufacturing power systems for data centres. Data centres are warehouses full of computer servers which are central to the operations of AI businesses. These facilities require massive, uninterrupted power supply to run servers and fuel sophisticated systems that keep them cool.

Companies like Microsoft and Google have been investing billions of pounds in centres as they compete to create the fastest and most useful AI services. In 2025, investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated that as much as $3 trillion (£2.2 trillion; €2.59 trillion) will be spent on data centres to support AI between 2025 and 2029.

This has fuelled growth for specialist firms like TES, which provides the critical power infrastructure required by data centre developers.

Brian Taylor, the company's chief executive, said that in the past few years they had scaled operations at an incredible pace. That included opening a new manufacturing facility in Ballykelly.

The company will continue to operate from its two sites in Cookstown and Ballykelly after the deal with Legrand is completed. The acquisition demonstrates continued international interest in Northern Ireland engineering expertise, particularly in power systems engineering and data centre infrastructure design.

Explore detailed coverage of the acquisition and data centre engineering market dynamics in the full report.