AI data centers are consuming copper at an unprecedented rate, but global supply is falling sharply behind demand—creating a decade-long investment opportunity in mining stocks.

What happened: AI data centers can require up to 50,000 tons of copper per facility, compared with 5,000 to 15,000 tons for traditional data centers. Cloud providers such as Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Alphabet plan to spend some $765 billion（約120兆円） this year on AI infrastructure, a figure expected to increase to more than $1.6 billion（約2600億円） by 2031. As a result, AI data centers could use half a million tons of copper a year by 2030.

Why it matters: Global copper supply is projected to be 24% short of demand by 2040, according to an S&P Global study published in January. Economic demand from grid expansion, renewable energy, AI computation, electric vehicles, and defense are all scaling at once, yet copper supply is not on track to keep pace. Copper prices have already jumped 57% over the past five years and 35% over the past 52 weeks.

What to watch: Three ways to invest in copper are highlighted: Freeport-McMoRan (the world's largest publicly traded copper-focused company), Southern Copper (the world's second-largest), and the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX), which holds 41 copper miner stocks and currently has net assets of about $8.2 billion（約1.3兆円）.