This photo provided by SK ecoplant Co. shows IT devices for IT asset disposition work stacked in the facility of TES, the company’s wholly owned electronics waste recycling subsidiary, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — In Las Vegas, Nevada, a 3,700-square-meter facility of Singapore-based IT lifecycle solution company TES houses stacks of used electronic devices, including data center servers, hard disk drives, laptops and smartphones.
About a 30-minute drive from the city’s luxurious strip of hotels, casinos and restaurants, this facility plays a crucial role in IT asset disposition (ITAD), a service focused on the safe and environmentally responsible management of unwanted or outdated IT equipment.
TES, founded in 2005 in Singapore and acquired by South Korean energy and construction firm SK ecoplant Co. in 2022, stands as a leading ITAD service provider with operations in 46 facilities worldwide, including four in the United States.
The Las Vegas facility, operational since last year, specializes in onsite data destruction, data center decommissioning, and the redeployment or resale of IT components through testing, grading, repairing, refurbishment and recycling.
“ITAD includes not only the destruction of information, but also the eco-friendly disposal of IT assets through recycling and reuse,” Oh Jong-hun, chief strategic officer CSO at TES, said during a media event Thursday. “The ultimate goal of ITAD is to minimize the amount of IT assets that are discarded and put to use again.”
He emphasized the need for strict protection of personal information and brand integrity in the processing and disposal of IT waste, subject to various laws and regulations in each country.
On the back of recovering demand for semiconductors and IT gadgets, the ITAD market is anticipated to nearly treble to US$144 billion in 2028 from $50 billion in 2020, according to recent data by Allied Market Research.
Oh noted that the increasing growth in artificial intelligence and cloud service industries will drive demand for data centers, leading to further expansion of the ITAD market.
To meet this growing demand, TES plans to open a new facility in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the first quarter, focusing on decommissioning hyperscale data centers.
Simultaneously, the Las Vegas facility will extend its services to recycling end-of-life EV batteries in western North America.
The TES official said the company is eyeing opportunities in Nevada’s emerging electric vehicle (EV) and battery industries
Global EV company Tesla and its battery provider, Panasonic, have their own production facilities in Nevada, which has the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S., while the U.S. EV battery recycler Redwood Materials has announced plans to expand its Nevada facilities.
In line with this move, SK ecoplant CEO Park Kyung-il met with Governor of Nevada Joe Lombardo at the TES plant Sunday, discussing issues of ITAD and used EV battery recycling programs.
“The state of Nevada has great potential for an industrial site for EV battery recycling,” Oh said. “We are also considering how to better utilize the supply chain of ‘collection-recycling-extraction-reproduction of rare metals’ that TES has secured in Nevada to create synergies with the EV battery recycling business.”
He said TES also aims to place more business priority on the end-of-service EV battery recycling market, expected to expand to $174.1 billion by 2040, by establishing a battery recycling facility in Kentucky.
Many major EV battery makers, including SK On Co., LG Energy Solution, AESC, FREYR Battery Inc. and Samsung SDI Co., have facilities in Kentucky and nearby Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio and Georgia.
The company plans to leverage its logistics expertise, built through experience in 23 countries, and holds 40 valid Basel permits, essential for the international transportation of hazardous waste, like e-waste and end-of-life batteries, under the Basel Convention signed in 1989.
(Yonhap)
