Wired for Trouble: AI's Copper Gobbling Spree Hits Critical Levels
How AI's Explosive Growth Could Spark a Copper Crisis by 2035

In the relentless march toward an AI-dominated future, where machines learn faster than a caffeinated intern, there's an unexpected hitch: copper. Yes, that humble metal wiring our homes and powering our gadgets is now under siege from the booming data center industry. According to a fresh report from BloombergNEF, the explosive growth of AI infrastructure could widen the global copper deficit to a staggering 6 million tonnes by 2035, turning what was already a tight market into a full-blown squeeze.
Picture this: data centers, those colossal warehouses of computing power, are sprouting up like mushrooms after a tech rainstorm. BloombergNEF analysts project that AI-driven demand alone will gobble up an average of 400,000 tonnes of copper annually over the next decade, hitting a peak of 572,000 tonnes in 2028. By 2035, the cumulative copper locked into these facilities could exceed 4.3 million tonnes. And this isn't happening in isolation—it's piling onto surging needs from power grids, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, where overall copper consumption is expected to nearly double in the same period.
The culprit? Years of skimpy investment in new copper mines, leaving supply chains gasping to keep up. As the report bluntly states, AI capacity additions are heaping pressure on an already strained market. With global copper production forecasted at just 29 million tonnes by 2035—against a demand of 35 million tonnes—the math doesn't add up, and neither will the bills for tech giants racing to build the next supercomputer.
