Not So Diaphanous

Apple's 500,000-sq-ft data center in North Carolina.

One of the big advantages to cloud computing is that the customer can cut back on hardware maintenance, utilities, and upgrades, not to mention its footprint.

However, while society's overall hardware burden is reduced, it doesn't go away.

Investment in cloud infrastructure has surged since 2015, and the market for data-center equipment is expected to grow at an average annualized rate of roughly 16% this year and next, according to Citigroup Inc.

Cloud servers, though, typically have a lifespan of only about three years, according to experts, meaning that some of the earliest equipment already has passed its use-by date.

The dollar value of new infrastructure equipment was $142 billion in 2017.

Amazon disclosed in its 10-K that Amazon World Services added $9.2 billion in Property, Plant, and Equipment in 2017. If the largest company in cloud storage comprises only 6-7% of world capacity, and if capacity is growing at 16%, then the opportunity for suppliers is immense (Amazon and Microsoft aren't the only players) in a business where the equipment must be replaced every three years.

And that goes for the disposers and recyclers, too. You can't bring in the shiny new equipment if the old stuff is still there.