Building technology and HVAC

The building's machinery, the cooling, the lifts, the locks and the smoke detectors

Walk into a mall or an office tower. The air is cool, the lift arrives, the door opens when you tap your ID card, and a smoke detector sits in the ceiling. A large building is a machine too, and each of these systems has its own makers.

The systems in a building

Heating and cooling

The industry calls it HVAC: heating, ventilation and air conditioning. In a large building, a chiller makes cold water, and air handlers blow air across it and through the building.

Lifts and escalators

Locks and access

Locks, door hardware, and the access systems that open a door for a card or a phone instead of a key.

Fire safety

Smoke detectors, alarms and sprinklers.

The building-automation system

It is the software that runs all these systems together from one place. It switches cooling and lights on and off as needed, which saves energy. Cooling is one of the largest uses of electricity in a building.

A building as a machine: heating and cooling from makers such as Johnson Controls, Trane Technologies and Carrier, lifts from KONE and Otis Elevator Co., locks from ASSA ABLOY Group and Allegion and alarms from Kidde Global Solutions, all run together from one building-automation system.

Who makes them, who buys them. The makers are global engineering groups. The buyers are property developers and building owners, and the contractors who install the equipment for them. Like other machine makers, these groups earn twice: once from the sale, and then for decades from service. A lift, for example, must be inspected and maintained for as long as the building stands.

Connected buildings. Building equipment is now connected. A chiller or a lift reports its own condition, and its maker can watch it from far away. So these groups write more and more software. Several run large engineering centres in Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. (More on the software that owners use to run a building in Market Segment 41.2, Property and facilities management software, in Industry Vertical 41, Proptech.)

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Cooling, lifts, locks and alarms

Cooling, lifts, locks and alarms

Heating, cooling and building automation

Johnson Controls

with engineers in Bengaluru, Pune and Delhi, makes YORK chillers, the Metasys building-automation system, and fire and security systems. It builds much of their software in India. Johnson Controls has the most job postings in this Market Segment.

Trane Technologies

with engineers in Bengaluru and Chennai, and Carrier, with engineers in Hyderabad, make heating and cooling systems for buildings.

Vertiv

with most of its Indian engineers in Pune, makes the cooling and power systems of data centres. These include the liquid cooling that AI servers need. (More on it in Market Segment 3.2, Server and storage hardware, in Industry Vertical 3, Data centres and servers.)

Lifts and escalators

KONE

with engineers in Pune, and Otis Elevator Co., with engineers in Hyderabad, make lifts and escalators.

Locks and access

ASSA ABLOY Group

with engineers in Chennai, is the world's largest lock maker.

Allegion

with engineers in Bengaluru, is the maker of Schlage locks. Its Indian arm is Allegion India.

Both make locks, door hardware, and the digital access systems that are replacing keys.

Fire safety

Kidde Global Solutions

with engineers in Hyderabad, makes smoke alarms and carbon-monoxide alarms. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas with no smell.

Otis and Kidde also appear among the companies that help run a building. (More on both in Market Segment 41.2, Property and facilities management software, in Industry Vertical 41, Proptech.)

Three companies covered mainly in other Market Segments also work here:

Danfoss

with engineers in Pune and Chennai, makes drives and compressors. (More on it in Market Segment 37.5, Industrial machinery and robotics.)

Generac

with engineers in Pune, makes standby generators. (More on it in Market Segment 40.1, Renewable energy and battery storage, in Industry Vertical 40, Energy and climate tech.)

Carrier Refrigeration

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes refrigeration equipment. (More on it in Market Segment 30.4, Shipment tracking and supply chain visibility platforms, in Industry Vertical 30, Supply chain and logistics.)

The data centre's cooling.

AI servers produce more heat than air can remove. So data centres are moving to liquid cooling, with cold liquid piped right up to the chip. Vertiv, Johnson Controls, Trane Technologies and Carrier are racing to supply it. The building's machinery has become part of the supply chain for AI. Its engineering is growing fastest where data centres are being built.

That is the machinery of a building: cooling, lifts, locks and alarms, and the software that runs them together. Global engineering groups make them, and several write much of their software in India.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What manufacturing tech companies hire for.

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