AI’s Next Bottleneck Might Not Be GPUs. It Might Be Copper, Silver, and Gallium.
I have been digging into the physical supply chain behind AI infrastructure, and my conclusion is pretty straightforward:
- AI is not just a software trade.
- It is not just a semiconductor trade.
- It is not even just a power-grid trade.
At scale, AI is a metals trade.
The market loves talking about GPUs, Nvidia, hyperscalers, power contracts, cooling systems, and data center capex. That is all real. But every one of those layers sits on top of a physical metals base that looks increasingly constrained.
The main metals I focused on are copper, silver, gold, zinc, gallium, rare earths, aluminum, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and a group of smaller critical minerals like germanium, indium, tantalum, arsenic, fluorspar, platinum, and palladium.
My read is that the AI metals problem breaks into two categories:
- Volume bottlenecks: copper and silver.
- Chokepoint bottlenecks: gallium and rare earths.
Copper is the biggest one.
A single 100 MW hyperscale data center can require roughly 27 to 47 tonnes of copper per megawatt. That works out to about 2,700 to 4,700 tonnes of copper per facility, before counting the extra grid infrastructure around it.
That copper goes into power cables, busbars, connectors, transformers, switchgear, grounding systems, heat exchangers, substations, transmission equipment, and cooling infrastructure.
Copper can represent up to 6% of data center capital expenditure.
Global copper demand was about 28 million tonnes in 2025 and is projected to reach 42 million tonnes by 2040. That is a roughly 50% increase.
AI data centers alone are forecast to consume an average of 400,000 tonnes of copper per year over the next decade, with demand peaking around 572,000 tonnes in 2028. Longer term, data centers could consume up to 3 million tonnes per year by 2050, raising their share of global copper consumption from about 1% today to as much as 7%.
The problem is supply.
The copper market is already tight. Forecasts for the 2025 refined copper deficit range from 124,000 tonnes to 304,000 tonnes, depending on the source. For 2026, analyst consensus also points to deficit conditions.
Longer term, the numbers get more serious. The IEA projects a possible 30% copper supply deficit by 2035, equal to roughly 6 million tonnes annually. S&P Global is even more aggressive, projecting a possible 10 million tonne shortfall by 2040.
This is not easy to fix.
New copper mines take an average of 17 years from discovery to first production. Chilean copper ore grades have fallen about 40% since 1991. Exchange warehouse inventories were only about 661,021 tonnes as of late 2025. That was up year-to-date, but still historically tight relative to demand.
Copper prices already touched about $11,952 per tonne in December 2025, up roughly 35% year-to-date. BloombergNEF forecasts a possible peak around $13,500 per tonne in 2028 as demand keeps outrunning supply.
My view: copper is the cleanest “AI infrastructure bottleneck” metal. Not because AI is the only demand driver, but because AI is arriving at the same time as EVs, grid upgrades, renewables, electrification, defense reshoring, and industrial power demand.
That is the problem. Too many megatrends are leaning on the same metal at the same time.
Silver is the second major volume issue.
Silver is the most electrically conductive metal. In AI infrastructure it shows up in switchgear, circuit breakers, silver-plated copper connectors, busbars, thermal interface materials, heat exchangers, and electronics.
There is also the solar angle. Each solar panel used to power data centers contains about 20 grams of silver. A 500 MW solar array for a hyperscale facility can require about 300 tonnes of silver.
Total silver demand reached 1.16 billion ounces in 2024.
Industrial fabrication hit a record 680.5 million ounces, which represented abo