AI data centres fuel global copper shortage, says survey

New Delhi: The world could soon face a copper shortage as electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centres surges, the Economic Survey warned on Thursday, underlining the growing strate-gic importance of critical minerals in the global energy transition.

The survey said metals such as copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements have emerged as key bottlenecks, influencing energy security, industrial competitiveness and geopolitics, amid rising trade restrictions by producing countries.

Copper prices have turned increasingly volatile due to mine outages in Indonesia, Congo and Chile, heightening concerns over medium- to long-term supply defi-cits as demand from power generation and data centres accelerates.

Highlighting the scale of investment needed, the survey noted that a 1-gigawatt wind power project alone requires nearly 2,900 tonnes of copper. Given low ore yields and large volumes of material movement, actual mining requirements are far higher, underscoring the resource intensity of expand-ing renewable energy capacity.