The United States designated copper as a critical mineral in November 2025 reflecting its unique role as the metal of electrification in a world that is being increasingly electrified. The need for copper will grow substantially in the years ahead in order to meet the myriad demands. Yet on its current track, copper supply will fall short with a resulting impact on economic activity, overall growth, and technological advancement. Understanding the complex and challenging interplay of future supply and demand of copper is what this study is about. It is also about understanding how to overcome obstacles in order to facilitate investment and timely development of new supplies.
Copper continues to do what it has primarily done for a century and a half – enabling the lighting of homes and offices and factories, the cooling through air conditioning and the delivery of heat. Today, it is also the connective artery powering physical machinery, digital intelligence, infrastructure, communication, and the movement of people and goods. Ensuring copper’s supply is no longer a question of mining policy; it has become a systemic challenge that touches technology, energy, security, and geopolitics.
In 2022, S&P Global conducted a comprehensive study on The Future of Copper that defined a new era and a new role for copper. For decades, the metal has been dubbed the dour “Dr. Copper” because variations in demand for such uses as construction, lighting, and machinery would be an early warning sign of an impending slowdown or recession. But our 2022 study pointed to a new category of demand – what we called “energy transition demand” resulting from the rise of solar and wind power, expanding sales of electric vehicles, and the drive to electrification as a result of climate policies. In that study, we assessed the substantial additional call on copper resulting from the overlay of energy transition demand on top of core economic demand.
This new study responds to a critical development since 2022 that is driving change – the accelerating pace of electrification. Copper is the essential, highly conductive metal for the endless miles of wiring in buildings and the wiring of every electric motor found in household appliances and industrial machinery, cementing its role as foundational to everyday living. As sectors like construction and manufacturing proceed with digitalization and further electrification, making buildings “smarter” and processes more connected, the demand for copper is intensifying. And while conventional autos use copper, electric cars use 2.9 times more copper, and 22 million of those EVs were sold worldwide in 2025, compared to only about 10,000 just 15 years earlier in 2010.
In this new study, we identify a third category that has only emerged since 2022. This is AI demand, resulting from the surge in investment in “intelligence factories” – otherwise known as data centers – and the infrastructure and ecosystems that support them. The impact is expected to be very substantial. S&P Global estimates that, for instance, the data center share of total electricity demand in the United States will rise from 5% today to as much as 14% by 2030, just half a decade away. This will require a substantial expansion in electric power infrastructure. Indeed, electricity is often described as the major constraint on AI. In turn, the availability of copper could be a constraining factor on expanding that essential flow of electricity (as well as data center equipment itself) – and thus on the roll-out of AI and the promise it holds for efficiency and innovation.
We also point in this new study to yet a further call on copper coming from the global surge in defense spending and the development of new types of weapon systems that depend on advanced electronics, sensors, propulsion, and communication systems. When combined with AI’s defense applications, ensuring reliable copper supply has become as central to national security as it is to industrial policy, AI, and clean-energy transition strategies.
These categories of demand are cumulative. Through 2040, S&P projects global electricity demand to grow nearly 50%, compared to 2025 levels. Every new megawatt and every new line of digital code ultimately depend on copper. AI systems draw vast amounts of power that must flow through copper conductors linking processors, memory, and cooling systems. Electric vehicles require 2.9 times more copper than conventional cars. Wind, solar and transmission systems cannot function without it, and the same is true of advanced weapons and surveillance systems, the effectiveness of which depend on compact, high-conductivity materials.
Strategic criticality
These demands of electrification make copper not just a question of supply but one of strategic criticality. Moreover, copper is essential because the alternatives are limited when it comes to better fit, price, or performance. While aluminum, graphite, or fiber optics can be substituted in some uses, they cannot compete with copper’s superior conductivity, durability, and versatility. Copper consumption can also be reduced through thrifting – using less copper due to design changes or technological advances. Much of the feasible substitutes for copper that can reduce demand for certain end uses are apparently already in use, leaving limited scope for new displacement.
What does all this mean in terms of numbers? The demand section will present our findings on how consumption will drive an unprecedented surge in copper use. This section includes a “teach-in” on varieties of data centers and their impacts on demand.
The supply section assesses the challenges to meet rising copper demand through new mine development, processing, refining, and recycling. Declining ore grades, regulatory and permitting delays, unbounded litigation, and the concentration of smelting capacity – all these have created structural constraints that could lead to persistent shortfalls and sharper competition for supply and possibly supply shocks. The supply section includes a “teach-in” about the processing system, the complexity and challenges of which are not well recognized.
Our study also assesses risks, including the geographic concentration of mining and refining, which drives disproportionate influence over offtake prices and costs while amplifying volatility and exposing vulnerabilities in global supply chains.
This report provides a foundation for policymakers, regulators, investors, industry participants, and the broader public to understand copper’s essential role in the age of AI – as the linchpin of electrification. It sets out how accelerating demand, constrained supply, and concentrated processing capacity intersect. The analysis underscores what can be done to expand mining investment and new supply and to also stimulate innovation and competition in the supply chain.
