I have already published an article about gold and copper, where I talked more about gold, where traders and speculators turned a conservative defensive instrument into a volatile asset. And, of course, I explained how this situation illustrates why institutional giants are now forced to go into copper companies. And copper is indeed showing impressive results, but I would like to write more about whether there is a future for the copper perspective and whether everything is so straightforward.  

Copper Mathematics: Figures and Wall Street Forecasts

Let's start with the numbers over the last 10 years, a surge of 205%, over the last year - 45%, and even over this week it jumped by 5%. In September 2026, copper futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) updated their historical maximum, breaking the $14,700 per metric ton mark ( +18% since the beginning of this year alone ). Impressive, right?  

But there is a small problem. There is an International Copper Study Group called ICSG, which canceled its previous forecasts of a surplus and now officially forecasts a refined copper deficit of 150,000 tons for 2026. Wall Street is even more pessimistic:

• Morgan Stanley expects the deepest deficit in the last 22 years - around 590,000 - 600,000 tons.
• J.P. Morgan forecasts a shortage of 330,000 tons.

Who is Consuming Global Supplies?

Now the question arises - why is the copper deficit happening? This dilemma already stands at Data Centers and AI. Modern supercomputers, especially on architectures like Nvidia HGX, require a large number of cables, cooling systems, and power busbars. According to J.P. Morgan estimates, the construction of new hyperscale data centers alone will absorb over 475,000 tons of copper in 2026. For a second, copper accounts for a tiny fraction of the budget of a campus worth $10 billion, so tech giants are ready to buy it at any price; essentially, you can say that their demand is absolutely insensitive to rising quotes. 

Also involved here is renewable energy ( solar panels and wind turbines ) and charging infrastructures to outdated grids. And by the way, grid infrastructure is the largest consumer of copper in the world.  

And the smallest of those two copper consumers, but still a consumer, is electric vehicles. They require 3–4 times more copper than a classic car with an internal combustion engine.  

Supply Crisis and Real Deficit

Now it is necessary to understand why a copper deficit can create a severe crisis in this area. You can build a data center in a year, but creating a new copper mine takes from 10 to 15 years. Almost half of the currently operating global mines are over 20 years old. The copper content in ore has dropped by 40% since 1991, which catastrophically increases production costs. Constant operational disruptions and shutdowns of major lines in Chile, Indonesia, and the DRC block new supplies.  

In essence, with gold, investors are currently trading psychology, narratives, and emotions, the asset is heavily overvalued from the perspective of classic triggers. With copper, on the contrary - mathematics rules, where producers physically have nowhere to get metal for artificial intelligence cables, which makes this trend much more sustainable. Big money goes where there is a real deficit of the material world, not just numbers on a screen.  

The Shadow Side: Why Everything is Not So Smooth?

As you can see, despite the perfect bullish narrative, everything is not so smooth here. Especially if you add the fact that due to sky-high prices, the industry is looking for cheaper alternatives. For example, aluminum - it has worse conductivity, but it is lighter and significantly cheaper. They are already starting to use it more actively in the auto industry and green energy, but for those same data centers, it is too bulky.  

The next factor is China, which buys half of all the copper in the world. Copper is needed for construction and factories. Since there is currently a crisis in the Chinese real estate market and manufacturing has also slowed down, the country no longer needs as much copper as before. And since China is the main buyer, this drop in demand on its part prevents prices from growing and pulls them down.  

And also, copper extraction is extremely dirty and requires billions of liters of water in the arid regions of Chile and Peru. Stricter ESG regulation and community protests, for example, the closure of the giant Cobre Panama mine, block the launch of new projects.  

What is the Bottom Line?

Unlike gold, which can grow on fear alone and expectations of rate cuts, copper completely depends on real life. Speculators and retail traders are already running here, so ahead there might be something like a roller coaster ( although you can't surprise anyone here anymore, looking at what has been happening to the market over the last year ).  

However, while the world literally physically lacks hundreds of thousands of tons of metal for AI and cables, copper will remain one of the main values of the technological world. After all, hype and trends come and go, but the physical mathematics of deficit remains.  

Thank you for taking the time to read!