Copper Supply Crunch Looms as AI Demand Accelerates

AI's Copper Dependency Collides With a Shrinking Discovery Pipeline
Major copper discoveries have fallen from double digits a year in the 1990s and 2000s to just one or two in recent years, with none recorded in 2025. A new deposit typically takes about 18 years to reach production, meaning the copper needed to meet 2040s demand would already need to have been discovered.
Data centers add new copper demand every 2 to 3 years, creating a gap between flat supply and rapidly rising demand given the long lead times required to bring new deposits online.