SK Ecoplant launches IT recycling facility in Virginia

Cho Jae-yeon, managing director of SK Ecoplant Environment BU (sixth from the left); Terrance Ng, CEO of SK tes (fifth from the left); Abigail Spanberger, Virginia State representative (fourth from the left); and officials pose for a photo at the building dedication ceremony of the new ITAD facility in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Wednesday. (SK Ecoplant)

Energy and environmental solutions provider SK Ecoplant announced Thursday the launch of a new IT Asset Disposition facility in Virginia through its recycling subsidiary, SK tes.

The newly completed facility, spanning 12,000 square meters, is designed specifically for hyperscale data centers. It will manage the entire lifecycle of information technology assets, from collection and secure data destruction to recycling and reuse.

Situated in a vital corridor of Virginia, where 70 percent of the world's online data passes through, the location is near the data centers of major technology companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. This makes Virginia a significant hub for the rapidly growing data market, with numerous hyperscale data center projects and expansions planned.

The facility's strategic placement is intended to attract new clients from major cloud services, platforms, IoT companies, and financial institutions in need of information security.

Able to process up to 600,000 servers annually, SK tes aims to meet the increasing Northern American demand for ITAD services, particularly from hyperscale data centers, over the next three years. The company has navigated the complex national legal landscape to secure permits aligning with waste regulations, ensuring top-tier information security services.

"We will prioritize capturing the Northern American market, which accounts for 40 percent of the ITAD volume, through information security technology and international standardization certifications for safety," said Cho Jae-yeon, managing director of SK Ecoplant Environment Business Unit.

This initiative aligns with the optimistic forecasts for the ITAD and E-waste markets, driven by a resurgence in the semiconductor and IT sectors. Market research firms Allied Market Research and Global Market Insights forecast significant growth in the E-waste and ITAD markets, predicting a surge from $50 billion in 2020 to $144 billion by 2028, and an expansion from $14.5 billion in 2022 to $31.4 billion by 2032, respectively. In response, SK tes aims to boost its server processing to 1 million annually by 2026 and expand into key markets like Singapore and Australia to leverage these trends.

Concurrently, Gartner, an IT market analysis firm, recognized SK tes, alongside Iron Mountain and Sims Lifecycle Services, as leading providers of comprehensive ITAD services globally last year.

By Park Se-ra(serap1005@heraldcorp.com)