Build an AI megafactory and you will need a copper mine to go with it. The latest hyperscale data centres, those vast, humming campuses built to feed large-language models, bear little resemblance to the server farms of yesteryear.
Facilities once content with a few thousand tonnes of copper now routinely gorge on several tens of thousands. Many older sites used perhaps 5,000–15,000 tonnes for wiring, busbars, transformers and cooling. Their AI-era heirs can swallow closer to 50,000 tonnes each. That makes artificial intelligence not only a story about semiconductors and software, but increasingly one about materials.
Copper, in particular, is becoming the quiet hero (and constraint) of the digital age. In America the trend underwrites the argument for reviving domestic mines and supply chains. “Friend-shoring” is easier said than done, but the direction of travel is clear.
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