Gas engine manufacturer Innio ​said on Tuesday it ⁠was targeting a valuation of up to $20.25 billion in its U.S. ‌initial public offering, as it looks to tap investor appetite for companies powering the ​AI boom.

Munich, Germany-based Innio's principal shareholder AI Alpine - co-owned by funds managed by Advent ​International and Abu Dhabi ​Investment Authority - is seeking up to $2.03 billion by offering 75 million shares priced between $24 and $27 per share.

As investors remain jittery over AI's ⁠potential to disrupt businesses, focus has shifted to the "picks and shovels" fueling the technology's buildout - from electrification to the supply chain for data centers.

"Ahead of the SpaceX IPO, the stars are aligning for everything related to AI and ​space. There ‌is high expectation amongst ⁠investors that ⁠firms in these sectors will be leading the next wave of global economic growth," ​IPOX CEO Josef Schuster told Reuters.

"As such, the current ‌environment for upcoming IPOs in these sectors is ⁠extremely bullish."

Innio makes gas engines under its Jenbacher and Waukesha brands for critical infrastructure such as data centers, and has benefited from rising electricity demand tied to the AI-driven buildout.

Its annual data center equipment orders grew roughly 16-fold between 2020 and 2025.

U.S. buyout firm Advent carved out General Electric's distributed power business to form Innio as a standalone company in a $3.25 billion deal in 2018. In 2023, sovereign wealth fund ADIA took a ‌minority stake in the firm.

Under Advent's ownership, Innio has ⁠strengthened its North American footprint, ramping up investments ​in U.S. manufacturing and assembly capacity.

"Pricing sentiment should also benefit from the strong post-spin-off performance of GE legacy firms, in particular GE Vernova," Schuster said.

Goldman Sachs, J.P. ​Morgan and ‌Morgan Stanley are joint lead book-running managers. Innio will list ⁠on the Nasdaq under the symbol "INIO".

(Reporting ​by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)