SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF ) said on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire all shares of FlaktGroup, a German maker of air conditioning and heating systems, for 1.5 billion euro ($1.68 billion) from European investment firm Triton.

This would be the tech giant's biggest acquisition since 2016 when it announced an $8 billion deal to buy car electronics maker Harman International Industries.

FlaktGroup makes heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for a wide range of buildings and facilities, including data centres that require stable cooling, Samsung said.

"In its acquisition of FlaktGroup, Samsung anticipates sustained growth in data centre demand due to the proliferation of generative AI, robotics, autonomous driving, XR, and other technologies," Samsung said in a statement.

Samsung said the transaction is expected to close within this year.

The company said at its shareholder meeting in March that it was looking at major deals to drive growth after its failure to ride an artificial intelligence boom made it one of the worst-performing tech stocks last year.

Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF ) shares rose 1.2% in early trading, while the overall market gained 0.8%.

($1 = 0.8937 euros)