Why copper markets are feeling the pinch due to aggressive AI data center expansion — expansive buildout to demand 1.1 million tonnes of copper annually by 2030, close to 3% of global demand

Data center demand is skyrocketing as the generative AI revolution continues at pace. The racks of servers already use around 1.5% of global electricity, but by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects their power demand to more than double to roughly 945TWh a year, with AI the single biggest driver of that surge.

Beyond energy and water use, and the insatiable demand for chips that has driven Nvidia to record highs and triggered an arms race between Nvidia’s GPUs and the tensor processing…