It’s Starting to Feel Like 2021 Again – Are You Positioned for the Next Commodity Boom?

The world is beginning to feel the first tremors of a familiar shock. Not a repeat of 2021 exactly, but something potentially more durable: supply chains tightening, energy routes destabilizing and the next technology boom colliding with the physical limits of the global economy.

For most traders, artificial intelligence is still being priced as a software story. The market remains obsessed with chips, cloud platforms and the next company to dominate machine learning. Yet the deeper opportunity may now sit elsewhere – in the hard assets required to power, connect and protect the AI economy.

Data centres do not run on enthusiasm. They run on electricity, Copper wiring, transformers, substations, cooling systems, turbines, gas-fired power and grid capacity. That is where the real bottleneck is forming.

The International Energy Agency expects global data centre electricity consumption to roughly double from 485 terawatt hours in 2025 to around 950 terawatt hours by 2030, with demand growing far faster than the wider power system.

Natural gas is expected to meet more than 40% of additional data centre electricity demand through 2030, making reliable energy supply a critical constraint on the AI build-out.

“AI is not a weightless revolution,” says Lars Hansen, Head of Research at The Gold & Silver Club. “It is one of the most power-hungry, metal-intensive industrial expansions of the modern era. Traders who only own the digital layer may be missing the scarcity trade underneath it.”

Copper Is Becoming Strategic Infrastructure

Copper is no longer just an industrial metal. It is becoming the nervous system of the AI age.

Every hyperscale data centre requires cabling, switchgear, cooling infrastructure, backup power, transformers and new grid connections. Every new power plant, transmission upgrade and electrification project adds another layer of Copper demand.

The problem is that supply is not responding quickly enough. Mine grades are declining. New projects take years to approve. Resource nationalism is rising. Processing bottlenecks are becoming more politically sensitive.

Goldman Sachs has now raised its Copper price forecast, lifting its long-term target to $15,000 per tonne. While Citi expects prices to climb to $14,000 within the next three months – highlighting supply risks linked to Hormuz disruption and tighter inputs for Copper production.

“This is the point where Copper stops behaving like an ordinary cyclical Commodity and starts behaving like strategic infrastructure,” Hansen says. “If AI is the brain of the new economy, Copper is the wiring that allows it to function.”

Hormuz Has Added a New Scarcity Premium

The Iran conflict has changed the Commodity equation. What began as an Energy shock is now threatening to become a broader supply-chain inflation event.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most important Energy arteries. In 2025, more than 110 billion cubic metres of LNG passed through the Strait, including about 93% of Qatar’s LNG exports and 96% of the UAE’s. That represented almost one-fifth of global LNG trade, with no easy alternative routes for those volumes.

That matters because AI’s power demand is rising just as Energy security is deteriorating. If LNG flows are restricted, power costs rise. If power costs rise, data centre economics tighten. If freight, fuel and insurance costs continue climbing, inflation risk returns through the supply chain before official data fully captures it.

Oil prices have already reflected that risk. Brent fell below $100 on 25 May 2026 amid hopes of progress in Iran talks, but remains far above pre-war levels, with analysts warning that disrupted flows and infrastructure damage could take months to normalize.

“Energy security is no longer a background issue,” Hansen says. “It is becoming the foundation of the entire AI economy. When war risk enters a market already tightened by demand growth and underinvestment, the repricing can be violent.”

The Hard Asset Window Is Still Open — But Not for Long

This is why the next Commodity boom could arrive faster than consensus expects.

Copper wires the AI economy. Natural Gas helps power it. Oil shocks raise the cost of moving everything. Hormuz disruption adds a geopolitical premium. Supply chains are tightening again just as traders had convinced themselves inflation was under control.

The lesson from 2021 is clear: by the time everyone sees the shortage, the easy money will already be made.

The winners will not be those who simply believe in the AI revolution – it will be those positioned in the hard assets required to power it, wire it and keep it running.

The real question is no longer whether this opportunity is coming. The real question is whether you are positioned to capitalize on what could become the greatest wealth creation opportunity of this decade.