Trafigura sees AI copper at 1.6 million tons in 2028, or 3 million if hyperscalers build everything. The gap is bigger than all of Vale.
Commodity trader Trafigura now runs two numbers for data center demand. The difference between them is up to 1.4 million tons a year, and it depends on which announced projects actually get built, not on the copper price. Vale, which runs Brazil's Salobo and Sossego copper mines, guides to 360,000 to 380,000 tons for all of 2026.
Copper’s AI story got a second number this week. Speaking at Bloomberg’s 2026 Base Metals event in London on Tuesday, Henry Van, head of industrial metals analysis at Trafigura, said that if hyperscalers complete all of their investment plans, copper use for data centers and cloud computing could reach 2.5 to 3 million tonnes in 2028 [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026]. That is not his base case. Trafigura estimates the segment uses about 1 million tonnes this year, and because markets doubt every project will be finished, its baseline for 2028 is 1.6 million tonnes, up 60 percent [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026].
Both numbers matter, but the space between them matters more. By desk arithmetic, the base case adds about 600,000 tonnes of demand in two years. The full-build case adds 1.5 to 2 million. The difference, 0.9 to 1.4 million tonnes a year in 2028, is a bet on concrete, permits and power hookups, not on metal. Van’s own line on price makes the point: data center builders are not price sensitive. “They do not care about the price of copper,” he said [Briefs Finance, 20 Oct 2026].
What’s happening
- Two forecasts, one trader. Trafigura’s 2028 data center copper number is 1.6 million tonnes on its baseline and 2.5 to 3 million tonnes if all hyperscaler plans are built, against about 1 million tonnes this year [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026]. By desk arithmetic, the top case is 2.5 to 3 times this year’s use.
- Data centers now carry the growth. Trafigura chief economist Saad Rahim told an LME seminar on Monday that data center construction is a small share of total copper demand, but that without its rapid growth global demand would fall this year [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026]. At the LME Week debate, Trafigura’s Graeme Train said copper demand grew 2.7 million tonnes over the past five years and that traditional sectors such as construction, autos and white goods “have contributed effectively nothing” to that growth [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026].
- Still a small slice. Panellists at the same debate put the share of copper demand linked to data centers at about 3 percent [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026]. Train said another million tonnes could be added “quite easily over the next five years,” and perhaps two million [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026].
- Supply is expected to answer. Van expects higher prices to lift supply by 2 million tonnes next year [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026]. LME copper was about US$14,361 a tonne on Tuesday, below last month’s record of US$14,875 [Bloomberg via Bloomberg Línea, 21 Oct 2026].
- The room was less sure. Before the LME debate copper took almost three quarters of the audience vote; afterwards it took half, with tin at 26.5 percent [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026].
Brazil angle
Vale, owner of the Salobo and Sossego copper mines in Pará, works on a different scale. It narrowed its 2026 copper guidance to 360,000 to 380,000 tonnes, from 350,000 to 380,000, on 30 July [Vale 6-K, 30 Jul 2026], and produced 200,700 tonnes in the first half, including 98,400 tonnes in the second quarter, of which Salobo contributed 52,400 and Sossego 25,900 [Vale 2Q26 production report, 21 Jul 2026]. By desk arithmetic, the gap between Trafigura’s two 2028 scenarios, 0.9 to 1.4 million tonnes, is between about 2.4 and 3.9 times Vale’s entire annual copper guidance. Even Trafigura’s cautious increment of about 600,000 tonnes is roughly 1.6 to 1.7 times it.
The asset to watch this quarter is Sossego in Pará. Vale maximised the plant’s operations in the second quarter ahead of a 110 day rebuild of the SAG mill planned to start in August, with nine weeks of the rebuild scheduled in the third quarter and six in the fourth [Vale 2Q26 production report, 21 Jul 2026]. Vale says the rebuild is key to lifting Sossego’s processing capacity to 15 million tonnes a year, and that a mobile crusher will partly offset the stoppage [Vale 2Q26 production report, 21 Jul 2026]. Vale publishes its third quarter numbers on 29 October, for the first time in a single performance report that folds production and sales into the financial results [Investidor10, 1 Oct 2026].
The point for Brazil is not that Carajás can close the AI gap. It cannot. It is that a market whose marginal demand ignores price will pay for reliable tonnes, and Brazilian concentrate is reliable tonnes in a world where, Train said, “concentrates are not really growing that much” [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026].
US angle
Washington is already pulling metal toward itself. Train told the LME debate: “If the US has built about 900,000 tonnes of copper this year, that’s like a quarter of supply growth diverted to the US,” and said “it’s perhaps only the US that has really taken very strong action to secure the copper” it needs [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026]. Last week Mercuria said 12,000 tonnes of copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo had gone into Project Vault, the US critical minerals reserve, part of a Gecamines commitment to ship 100,000 tonnes from its 20 percent share of Tenke Fungurume output to the US in 2026 [Reuters via Kitco, 15 Oct 2026]. For an African state miner, the AI demand story is arriving as a US stockpile contract, not a data center order.
China angle
The supply that is supposed to answer Van’s forecast is largely Chinese capital. Train said about 75 percent of all mine supply added over the past ten years “has had some form of Chinese equity backing,” and that China would keep building smelters until it no longer needed to import refined copper [Fastmarkets, 20 Oct 2026]. If hyperscalers build toward the 3 million tonne case, much of the metal that meets it will have passed through Chinese-financed mines or Chinese furnaces first.
What it means
Last week the copper study group projected a refined surplus for 2027 while naming AI as a demand driver, and this desk argued the shortage sits in the mine rather than on the shelf (The copper study group now names AI as a demand driver). Trafigura’s two numbers sharpen that: the size of AI copper demand in 2028 is now mostly a question of how many announced campuses get built, and the answer can swing demand by more than a Vale a year in either direction. Price will not ration that demand, if Van is right. Delays will. That makes copper the input most exposed to permitting and grid timelines rather than to its own cost curve, and it means a buyer who is not price sensitive will keep paying premiums for secure supply. Aurubis has already set a record 2027 European premium of US$347 a tonne, up 10 percent from US$315 [Reuters via Kitco, 14 Oct 2026].
What to watch
- Vale’s third quarter report on 29 October. How much the Sossego SAG rebuild cut output, and whether Vale holds its 360,000 to 380,000 tonne guidance [Vale 6-K, 30 Jul 2026; Investidor10, 1 Oct 2026].
- Codelco’s 2027 premiums in Asia. Benchmark’s Albert Mackenzie said it will be interesting to see whether Codelco’s premiums, especially in Asia, follow Aurubis upward [Reuters via Kitco, 14 Oct 2026]. Europe has already answered: Codelco set a record 2027 European premium of US$350 a tonne, up from US$325 for 2026 [SMM, 21 Oct 2026]. A record Asian premium would say price-insensitive demand is reaching term contracts there too.
- Which scenario hyperscalers fund. The next round of hyperscaler capex guidance is the direct test of whether Trafigura’s 1.6 million tonne baseline or its 2.5 to 3 million tonne full-build case is the one to model.
