Why copper is becoming Asia’s next AI bottleneck

[SINGAPORE] The volatility of the price of copper is hitting Asia-Pacific data centre developers harder than their global peers, with the region’s relatively inefficient power grids requiring larger amounts of copper for infrastructure.

Soaring copper prices are unlikely to derail the expansion of artificial intelligence-driven data centres, analysts have said, but they warn that tightening supplies of the metal could lengthen procurement times and delay new data centre capacity coming online.

Alexander Kheder, technology, media and telecommunications analyst at financial research firm BMI, noting that China produces around 60 per cent of the world’s refined copper, said that North-east Asia’s greater exposure to copper’s price volatility relative to other regions is structural rather than cyclical.