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Funding the future
Ghost IT assets are hindering security and AI innovation
The rise of hybrid and remote work has fractured ITAM visibility, making it increasingly difficult to track devices dispersed across thousands of employee home offices. This challenge, particularly prevalent during employee departures and hardware refresh cycles, turns untracked devices into “ghost assets”—hardware that vanishes from corporate oversight.
Gartner clients have reported that up to 30% of organization assets get lost, including equipment retained by leavers or teams awaiting new starters.2
Potential recovery ranges of ghost hardware by company size or industry. Assuming a 20% resale for IT assets recovered, simply reigning in missing hardware represents additional budget that can be directed at responsible AI expansion and new IT procurement.1
AI is reshaping technology lifecycles
AI is disrupting traditional corporate technology timelines. Because AI workloads require massive computing power, legacy hardware cannot keep up, and standard, once predictable hardware refresh cycles are no longer viable.
Two catalysts are triggering upgrades:
- NPUs are reshaping the employee fleet, as employees cannot run next-generation AI software on yesterday’s laptops.
- Hybrid AI and secure inferencing require modernized local servers, high-speed storage and networks, since an enterprise AI strategy cannot rely on the public cloud alone.
The strategic imperative of the circular IT estate
The shift toward IT circularity is also an environmental necessity due to resource scarcity and tightening global regulations, with CO2 reduction tracking now established as the primary success metric for these programs.
By prioritizing reuse and material recovery, organizations mitigate the hazardous impact of e-waste and decrease reliance the roughly 100 billion metric tons of materials extracted each year, according to the UN.3 As organizations transition from viewing disposition as a cost center to a strategic recovery program, they are tapping into a rapidly expanding global market.
By closing the loop on IT assets, the modern enterprise stops viewing disposal as a cost and starts viewing it as a capital recovery engine that fuels AI investment. It also strengthens security, decreases risk, and enhances sustainability goals, positioning the enterprise for higher valuations and favorable lending terms from investors.
The global IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) market—the operational backbone of circularity—is
today
by late 2034
Sustainability as a financial instrument
In the era of the information supercycle, sustainability goes beyond corporate social responsibility and becomes a strategic financial instrument. As AI workloads demand more energy and hardware, the circular IT model is a critical counterbalance.
By prioritizing the reuse and recovery, organizations can significantly mitigate the environmental toll of AI.
This translates into better capital efficiency through Sustainability-Linked Loans (SLLs) and bonds. Financial institutions treat IT circularity as a proxy for operational maturity, offering discounted interest-rate spreads to companies that meet ESG milestones like zero-landfill benchmarks or carbon-avoidance targets.
This creates a business model where sustainability fuels growth: the capital reclaimed from circularity funds the next generation of AI innovation, while the resulting ESG performance lowers the cost of debt, driving higher institutional valuations and long-term corporate resiliency.
Raw material extraction and processing account for roughly
of global greenhouse gas emissions.3
Iron Mountain’s research shows concern that AI energy demand will conflict with ESG and sustainability milestones — 20% very concerned, 51% somewhat concerned, 22% not that concerned, 6% not at all concerned.1
It’s time to turn your legacy IT into the capital powering your AI.
By closing the loop on IT assets, the modern enterprise stops seeing disposal as a cost and starts seeing it as a capital recovery engine that fuels AI investment. It also strengthens security, decreases risk, and enhances sustainability goals, positioning the enterprise for higher valuations and favorable lending terms from investors.
Actions you can take today:
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Sources
1 Iron Mountain, “The information supercycle: Aligning data, infrastructure, and capital for AI scale,” October 2026. Ghost hardware recovery estimates are Iron Mountain analysis and assume:
- Average hardware spend by company size reflects industry benchmarks.
- 30% of hardware becomes ghost assets.
- Recovered assets resell at 20% of initial cost.
2 *Gartner, “3 IT cost saving actions that enhance sustainability,” January 2026.
3 International Resource Panel, United Nations Environment Programme, “Global resources outlook 2024,” March 2024. Extraction and processing of material resources account for over 55% of greenhouse gas emissions; global material use was about 100 billion tonnes in 2020.
4 Fortune Business Insights, “IT asset disposition market, 2026-2034,” August 2026. Market projected to grow from $21.77 billion in 2026 to $48.48 billion by 2034, a 10.53% CAGR.
Sources reviewed October 2026.
*Gartner 3 IT cost saving actions that enhance sustainability; Stephen White, Stuart Downes, Autumn Stanish; January 19, 2026 GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.