The metal without which AIdoesn’t work
Copper has been considered a key metal of the industrial economy for decades. It is used in electrical grids, cables, electronics and transportation infrastructure.
But now new sources of demand are being added to these sources of demand – electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.
Technology giants including Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet are investing tens of billions of dollars to build giant data centers.
Each such facility requires huge amounts of energy infrastructure, where copper remains the key material.
Demand for copper in electric and hybrid vehicles is projected to grow from 2.3 million tons in 2025 to about 6 million tons by 2035.
Other technologies such as artificial intelligence, data centers, and communication networks are also putting additional strain on electricity infrastructure, increasing the need for transmission lines, generators, and energy storage systems.
Demand from these sectors is expected to grow from 10 million tons in 2025 to 14 million tons by 2035. Transmission and power generation will account for about 77% of this growth, economies.com reported.
Industry analysts estimate that a large data center can use up to 50,000 tons of copper – several times more than a traditional data center.
Goldman Sachs analyst Eoin Dinsmore notes in this regard: “Electrification and advances in artificial intelligence are creating a structural increase in copper demand that could persist for decades.”
Not surprisingly, the metal’s price has already climbed above $13,000 per ton, reflecting the growing competition for the strategic resource. By the end of 2025, copper had only just crossed the $12,000-per-ton mark, increasing in value by more than 30% in a year, notes binance.com.
New commodity supercycle
Rising demand for copper, electricity and power equipment has analysts talking about the possible start of a new commodity supercycle.
This term is used to describe long periods of rising commodity prices caused by fundamental changes in the global economy.
The last such cycle was observed in the early 2000s, when China’s industrialization dramatically increased demand for metals and energy.
Now artificial intelligence infrastructure may play a similar role.
Analysts at S&P Global warn that copper shortages could reach 10 million tons a year by 2040 if investment in mining does not accelerate.
The growing importance of copper is already beginning to change global economic policy.
The largest deposits of the metal are in Chile, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And it is greatly increasing geopolitical interest in these countries.
Everyone recognizes that as the race for leadership in artificial intelligence accelerates, control of metal supply chains and energy infrastructure is becoming a new element of global geopolitics.
This approach has already created new flashpoints in the world, in the case of the situation around Greenland, Venezuela, or the war in Iran. In each of these cases, control over resources was an obvious, if not explicitly declared, goal.
