Data centers and AI combine to create ITAD 'growth engine'

[caption id="attachment_14089" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Sims Lifecycle Services, the ITAD arm of global metals giant Sims Limited, reported a 21% revenue increase in the first half of its 2025 fiscal year, while Iron Mountain reported a revenue increase of 119% over 2023. | Maximumm / Shutterstock[/caption] IT asset disposition giant Sims Lifecycle Services is handling "extraordinary" volumes of repurposed assets through its data center decommissioning business, and the company anticipates that is only going to increase, particularly in the U.S. Those were among the takeaways  from the company's recent earnings report. Meanwhile, ITAD giant Iron Mountain reported significant revenue growth in 2024, both from its acquisitions and from higher business volume. Both companies reported financial results in February.

Sims optimistic about data center decommissioning

Sims Lifecycle Services, the ITAD arm of global metals giant Sims Limited, reported a 21% revenue increase in the first half of its 2025 fiscal year, the six months ending Dec. 31, 2024, compared to the prior-year period. That came to a total $122.1 million in ITAD revenue. The company repurposed 4.5 million units, an 80% increase compared to the prior-year period – growth that company leaders attributed to the explosion in data center demand. "The magnitude of the numbers associated with data centers were quite extraordinary even before the advent of AI," CEO Stephen Mikkelsen said during a Feb. 26 earnings call. "Throw AI into the mix and the growing desire to keep data within country – and therefore, onshore data centers – it is obvious that the U.S.A. is going to continue to be the growth engine." Mikkelsen elaborated on the strong business case for data center decommissioning. "The rationale for repurposing data centers is an economic one," he said. "The parts are lower cost, available within country, enable frequent upgrades and have proven to be highly reliable." The ITAD business contributed about 20% of the company's total financial results, company leaders reported during the earnings call.

Iron Mountain sees revenue growth from Regency, component pricing

Within Iron Mountain's ITAD operations, which it calls Asset Lifecycle Management, the company reported a revenue increase of 119% over 2023, a figure that includes growth through acquisitions. Organic growth from new business was about 30%. "Regency Technologies had a very strong year, and our recent acquisitions of Wisetek and APCD are also performing well," CEO William Meaney said during the Feb. 13 earnings call. APCD is an Australian ITAD firm Iron Mountain acquired in 2024. The company reports ITAD revenues as part of a business segment that also includes fine art handling and installation. This segment reported $483.6 million in service revenues, which doesn't include revenue from storage rentals. That's up $222.3 million over 2023, with the bulk of growth coming from $137.0 million in revenue from Regency. Chief Financial Officer Barry Hytinen said during the earnings call that the rest of the revenue increase was mostly due to higher business volume rather than shifts in component prices. "Some of the components were down a little bit. Some were up a little bit," he said. "But on average, it was basically flattish, and so that was also volume-driven." Fourth-quarter asset lifecycle management revenue totaled $112 million, up $60 million from the same period in 2023. Regency contributed $34 million to the 2024 fourth-quarter revenue, and Wisetek and APCD contributed about $30 million, Hytinen said on the call. Company leaders and financial documents do not touch on the recent criminal case involving a former Wisetek employee, who stole devices during IT asset disposition work for federal agencies and government contractors. But Meaney did mention Iron Mountain's continued work with government clients. He noted the company recently won a contract with a state government to "deliver a fully managed hard drive destruction program across its agencies." He added the company "recently secured a long-term agreement with a large global healthcare company to manage the lifecycle of their IT assets." And the company recently signed its first Canadian ITAD contract, serving an insurance company, he said. Meaney also said he anticipates Iron Mountain could benefit from the Department of Government Efficiency project of the Trump administration. That came after Elon Musk, who is leading the DOGE project, recently highlighted Iron Mountain's Pennsylvania underground records storage site – which houses federal records – as an example of inefficiencies in the federal government.

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