Amazon's cloud computing services division has entered into a two-year copper supply agreement with the Nuton project, owned by Rio Tinto Group, to meet the robust demand for copper materials driven by the construction of artificial intelligence data centers. This represents the first new copper mining capacity in the United States in over ten years, highlighting how tech giants are actively expanding their reach upstream into the supply chains for critical industrial raw materials.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the mine being restarted by Rio Tinto in Arizona utilizes advanced bioleaching technology—which uses bacteria and acid to extract metals from ore—enabling the efficient processing of low-grade ore that was previously considered economically unviable. The mine is projected to produce approximately 14,000 metric tons of copper cathode over a four-year period.
This deal was finalized as international copper prices hit record highs, with prices on both the London and New York markets reaching all-time peaks this month. Surging copper consumption from data center construction, grid upgrades, electric vehicles, and renewable energy facilities has significantly offset the impact of slowing demand from traditional manufacturing and construction sectors.
A study released last week by S&P Global further indicated that by 2040, the application of artificial intelligence will drive global copper demand to increase by approximately 50% compared to current levels. If mining output fails to keep pace, a supply gap as large as 25% could emerge by then. This potential supply-demand imbalance poses a systemic risk to the global industrial landscape, technological advancement, and economic growth.
Bioleaching technology is helping to address the global copper resource bottleneck. Rio Tinto Group's Nuton project employs an innovative bioleaching process to restart a previously shuttered mine located east of Tucson, Arizona. The original operator of the mine ceased open-pit mining operations in 2010 after encountering low-grade ore bodies deemed uneconomical to extract.
Katie Jackson, Chief Executive of Rio Tinto Copper, pointed out that this technology not only efficiently processes low-grade ore that is unprofitable with traditional methods but also features lower carbon emissions and water usage intensity. At the Johnson Camp mine site, ore treated with bacteria and acid is piled into heaps; the resulting copper-bearing solution is collected and then used directly on-site in an electroplating process to produce usable copper cathode. The first batch of Nuton cathode copper was successfully produced last December.
Rio Tinto estimates that approximately 70% of the world's copper resources are contained in such primary sulfide ores, but their grade is typically insufficient to support traditional processing flows—which involve grinding, overseas transportation, smelting, and refining for economic recovery. The commercial application of this technology is a key part of Rio Tinto's strategy to counter excessively long new mine development cycles, which currently average over 20 years from discovery to production; bioleaching offers a new technical pathway to revitalize existing resources and shorten supply chain response times.
The surge in data center construction is fueling a massive increase in copper demand. As the data center construction boom sweeps across the globe, its enormous demand for copper resources is triggering a deep restructuring of supply chains. A single large-scale data center can require tens of thousands of tons of copper, covering critical electrical components such as wiring, busbars, circuit boards, and transformers. In comparison, the 14,000 tons of cathode copper that Rio Tinto's Nuton project plans to produce over four years would scarcely meet the total demand of even one such data center.
Chris Roe, Amazon's Global Director of Carbon Emissions, stated that the company is systematically pursuing low-carbon solutions at the commodity level to support sustainable business growth. He said:
"We are working at the commodity level to find low-carbon solutions to drive business growth. This means steel, concrete, and copper, which data centers absolutely cannot do without."
As part of the cooperation agreement, Amazon will provide cloud computing and data analytics services to Rio Tinto to optimize the metal recovery rate of the Nuton project and assist the miner in boosting production capacity. It is noteworthy that, despite current fluctuations in the U.S. policy environment, several tech giants, including Amazon, continue to invest in clean energy and carbon reduction initiatives.
A looming copper supply shortage threatens the AI boom. Mining executives, industry analysts, and economic forecasting agencies uniformly warn that a shortage of copper resources could pose a substantial constraint on the rapid development of artificial intelligence, an industry that is currently a core driver of the U.S. stock market's rise and American economic growth.
Although rising copper prices may incentivize the development of recycling technologies and prompt engineers to optimize copper usage efficiency, a structural supply gap is still approaching. The growth in copper demand from data center construction, grid upgrades, electric vehicles, and renewable energy installations has clearly surpassed the impact of cyclical demand slowdowns in traditional manufacturing and construction.
Rio Tinto is actively promoting its bioleaching technology through partnerships with multiple mines across the Americas. The company's strategy is clear: to increase production by activating legacy low-grade ore resources at old mine sites, addressing the structural challenge of increasingly difficult new mine discoveries, protracted development cycles, and rapidly growing copper demand.