A staggering amount of e-waste is generated by hard drives every year, with up to 70 million of them mindlessly shredded in their entirety. This results in the loss of valuable metals like neodymium, aluminum, and stainless steel. Microsoft aims to change that with this new technique.
The idea first emerged from a 2022 Microsoft hackathon focused on sustainable disk disposal. It’s the brainchild of Principal Data Scientist Ranganathan Srikanth, who envisioned specialized “Circular Centers” at Microsoft data center campuses. These facilities can reuse and recycle decommissioned server hardware on-site, with the goal of helping the company achieve zero waste by 2030 and carbon negativity by 2050.
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