Gold and silver have seen their values skyrocket this year, rising over 66% and 130%, respectively. This has been the result of investors scooping up these precious metals to protect their wealth as well as nations stockpiling reserves.
However, the price of industrial metals like aluminum, copper, and steel, as well as lithium have also been rising at a fast clip. While there are a series of factors that have helped push up their prices, one of the main drivers has been development of AI infrastructure and the transition away from fossil fuels.
“The future is metal”
Technology firms have been racing to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure, switching traditional data centers over to the revolutionary new technology and constructing new mega-AI-data centers.
“The world is moving from a fossil-fueled economy to one powered by technologies consisting of metals,” said commodity index product manager at Bloomberg Jim Wiederhold, reports Yahoo Finance. “The future is metal.”
Price change of metals:
| Industrial metal | Price change year-over-year |
|---|---|
| Aluminum | 14% |
| Copper | 34% |
| Steel | 27% |
| Lithium | 30% |
Not only are these data centers part of the reason for more demand of industrial metals, but they are consuming massive amounts of energy.
According to a report from Fox Business, AI-focused data centers use as much as 30% more electricity than their traditional counterparts. This is helping drive up the price of electricity for other users on the grid, and making aluminum production, which is very energy intensive, more costly.
Other factors that have pushed up the price of industrial metals have been on the supply side. “We’re just not going to have enough supply for the projected demand,” explained Wiederhold to Yahoo Finance.
A series of natural disasters at major mines this year stifled output and sent the price of copper higher. Trump’s tariffs also caused panic in the market, with traders scrambling to move stores out of overseas warehouses and into the US to avoid having to pay duties helping to worsen existing supply shortages.
Lithium prices on the other hand spiked when the Chinese government temporarily suspended operations at one of the nation’s battery maker’s major mining sites.
Industrial metal stocks are ripping in sync.
Gold stocks led, silver followed, platinum and palladium stocks after that, copper came next, then steel, and now aluminum stocks are breaking higher.
Trends are pushing further out along the risk spectrum in the metals space, and… pic.twitter.com/GH7481bRRz
— Ricardo Sarraf (@nullcharts) December 19, 2025
“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,” noted Wiederhold.
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