Mining the Server Room: Circular Strategies for the AI Buildout

How can operators build circularity into AI infrastructure from the start? As the first wave of AI hardware nears end of life, what systems can maximize material recovery?

Data center construction is drawing real public and regulatory scrutiny over its water, energy, and material demands, and the hardware inside is raising another pressing question: what happens when it’s retired. AI-dense servers pack far more value and complexity into their GPUs and memory than the hardware before them, with a major data center decommissioning wave expected within a few years. Leading operators are countering this by building recovery, refurbishment, and resale into their hardware plans so retired components feed back into the supply chain instead of a landfill. Hear from the experts how circular principles are being embedding into AI infrastructure and leave with a clear sense of how to build value recovery into your own hardware roadmap.