Demand from AI and clean energy pushes industrial metals up

The metals market in 2025 has been pretty crazy, thanks to gold’s astounding performance and silver’s equally beautiful rally.

But lithium, copper, aluminum, and steel have also managed to end up running right beside them, instead of trailing behind, thanks to insanely strong demand (not fear-buying), along with AI build-out and energy transition.

Jim Wiederhold, commodity index product manager at Bloomberg, said the world is “moving from a fossil-fueled economy to one powered by technologies consisting of metals. The future is metal.”

Demand from AI and clean energy pushes industrial metals up

Year-to-date, copper has rallied by more than 34%, steel gained 27%, while aluminum added 14%, and lithium surged by 30%.

Every tech-driven industry seemed to rely on a blend of these metals, and that kept prices on a steady upward grind.

Sadly though, supply problems hit the copper market harder than anything else. In May, flooding at Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut down one of the biggest copper mines on earth.

A few months later, a tunnel collapse in Chile damaged another major mine, then a mudslide hit Freeport-McMoRan’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia, cutting even more supply.

Lithium traders also felt pressure when the Chinese government temporarily halted operations at one of CATL’s major mining sites. Prices reacted fast.

Aluminum and steel producers ran into their own issues as energy prices climbed because of the Ukraine war and AI’s heavy electricity needs. ING Bank said China was nearing its aluminum cap, which limited how much extra supply the country could push into the market.

Wiederhold said, “When there’s geopolitical risk cropping up, or something with a government doing export bans to try and raise prices, this is a direct beneficiary of price appreciation.”

Tariffs and supply fears add new volatility as producers respond

The White House added more fuel when President Donald Trump approved 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The same tariff hit copper-intensive goods like wiring and tubes, though raw copper ore was not included.

When Trump first announced the tariff plan in July, traders rushed to pull physical copper out of overseas warehouses and move it into the U.S. before the duties took effect. Prices spiked immediately. Once the administration clarified that raw ore would remain exempt, copper prices cooled off.

Even with that correction, supply anxiety didn’t go anywhere.LPL Financial chief technical strategist Adam Turnquist said rising requests to remove copper from LME warehouses “exacerbated fears over a global supply shortage.”

Metal traders reacted quickly. Glencore, one of the biggest commodity firms worldwide, is preparing to lift its copper production from 850 kilotons in 2025 to 1,000 kt in 2028 and 1,600 kt by 2035, based on research from Jefferies. In Southeast Asia, Indonesian aluminum smelters began expanding refining capacity to catch rising demand.

Jigna Gibb, head of commodities and crypto index products at Bloomberg, said trading desks are increasing their physical positions because “energy and industrial metals are the key ones where you see a lot more positioning.”

All of this connected back to AI’s booming electricity appetite. Aluminum refiners need cheap energy, and rising AI power use is already cutting into their margins and raising operating costs. New grid expansions, more data centers, and wiring inside AI chips continue to lift demand for copper and steel.

Lithium stayed tight because of China’s control over much of global supply. EVs, energy storage systems, and other parts of the energy transition kept pulling lithium into long-term contracts. Wiederhold said the world is increasingly “powered by technologies consisting of metals,” adding, “We’re just not going to have enough supply for the projected demand.”

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