IntelliTAD 

A Compliance Standard’s Newsletter for Busy Executives

IntelliTAD #18: $725B in AI Capex, Foreign Equity, and a Closing Window

This issue covers what’s reshaping the ITAD and electronics recycling industry in the back half of 2026. Hyperscaler capital spending, $725 billion this year, is keeping equipment flowing through the disposition channel and used-server values elevated as memory pricing stays inverted. Twenty-two ITAD deals have closed over the past 22 months, and the buyer pool has changed: foreign materials companies — Sumitomo, Mitsubishi Materials, Korea Zinc — are now taking equity positions in U.S. origination companies, and buyers generally are paying more for documentation and chain-of-custody than for raw processing capacity.

The issue also announces a new presentation for CIOs and enterprise IT decision-makers, The Refresh Cycle Reckoning, on how memory and storage price shocks are forcing a rethink of hardware refresh cycles, internal redeployment, and end-of-life asset recovery.

In this edition of IntelliTAD, we released these reports, a presentation and a general assessment of macro conditions affecting the ITAD sector:

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Corporate Strategy: Paladin EnviroTech: Strategic Positioning in the Critical Materials Recovery Market

Eighteen months after its founding, Paladin EnviroTech is targeting rare earths and other metals that conventional refiners don’t currently report or pay out on — an estimated 15 to 22 metals present in e-scrap waste streams. The company’s joint venture with Critical Materials Recycling is scaling rare earth recovery from 40 to 300 metric tons a year, why precious-metals refining still runs through Japan, and where Paladin’s managed-services business fits into its pitch to hyperscalers. This report unpacks the strategy, the execution risk, and what it means for corporate and OEM buyers evaluating Paladin as a partner.

Corporate Strategy: Inside ERI’s Global Playbook. What Vietnam Reveals About the Company’s Next Moves

ERI is betting on Asia because the region combines fast-growing IT hardware volumes with a shortage of formal, enterprise-grade disposition infrastructure. After expanding its U.S. footprint, ERI’s next growth opportunity lies in markets such as Japan and Vietnam, where data-center buildout, electronics manufacturing and digitalization are increasing equipment retirements faster than secure, transparent ITAD capacity. By partnering with ITOCHU and VSD Holdings, ERI gains local market access while bringing its own data-security, traceability and closed-loop recycling model to markets still shaped in part by informal recycling.

Alphabet’s 2Q2026 Results: More Capital Spending and Cloud Backlog

Alphabet spent $44.9 billion in a single quarter building AI infrastructure, and raised its full-year guidance to $195–$205 billion. For anyone in decommissioning or ITAD, that number bodes well as it should be interpreted as a forward order book for the hardware this...

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