BHP Sees Global Copper Demand Surging Due to the AI Boom and Data Centers

Mining giant BHP expects the surge of AI computing and the exponential expansion of data centers to boost global copper demand by 72% by 2050, the miner’s chief financial officer Vandita Pant told the Financial Times.

Copper is vital for power supply and transmission, and it is also used in the cooling systems and processors at data centers.

So the surge in AI technologies and the massive build-out of data centers are expected to boost demand for copper, on top of the demand that will come from the clean energy rollout, BHP reckons.

Global demand for copper is seen at 52.5 million tons per year by 2050, up by 72% compared to 30.4 million tons in 2021, according to the mining giant.

“Today, data centres are less than 1 per cent of copper demand, but that is expected to be 6 to 7 per cent by 2050,” BHP’s Pant told FT.

BHP made an unsuccessful attempt earlier this year to buy another mining giant, Anglo American, as it was aiming at Anglo American’s copper assets that would have made it the world’s top copper producer. However, the offer was rejected by Anglo American.

Copper prices have fallen in recent weeks due to concerns about demand in China amid the property crisis and weaker-than-expected economic growth. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs downgraded its copper price forecast, due to weakening demand from China. The Wall Street bank now sees copper prices averaging $10,100 per metric ton in 2025, a sharp reduction from its previous forecast of $15,000.

While acknowledging the current soft demand for copper, BHP sees solid fundamentals for the metal in the long term. In its economic and commodity outlook for 2024, the miner said that apart from “traditional growth” in developing countries, the energy transition and data centers will become key sources of growth. Demand in the data center sector, currently about 1% of global copper demand, could grow six-fold out to 2050, BHP noted.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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