Copper Hit a Record High as Congo's Export Ban Collided With AI Demand

Copper hit an all-time record of $14,455 a tonne on August 7, 2026, as an AI-driven building boom collided with a Democratic Republic of Congo export ban on copper and cobalt concentrate, according to Reuters. The ban, dated June 29 and signed by three ministers, forced miners like CMOC, Glencore, and Ivanhoe Mines to choose between investing in local smelting or halting shipments, while LME stockpiles fell for 42 straight sessions to 204,975 tonnes, leaving the market tight enough that the August contract traded at a $370-a-tonne premium over September. Alibaba's cloud unit posted 45% revenue growth in the June quarter, its fastest in 22 quarters, with AI products making up 35% of cloud revenue, as group profit fell 75% on heavy AI capex.

Copper hit an all-time record of $14,455 a tonne on August 7, and the reason copper prices are at a record high in 2026 comes down to two forces slamming into each other at once: an AI-driven building boom and a sudden supply shock out of central Africa. On the London Metal Exchange, copper touched $14,455.60 a tonne that day, according to Reuters, while COMEX futures in New York hit $6.77 a pound. Both were records. Within two weeks, prices had eased to around $6.46 to $6.48 a pound, or roughly $14,250 a tonne, as Chile's output outlook worsened and Chinese demand signals softened. But the pullback hides how tight this market actually is underneath. The spark was a government order out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dated June 29 and signed by three ministers, it banned exports of copper and cobalt concentrate with immediate effect. The mines minister can still grant one-year waivers for projects deemed strategically important. News of the order didn't fully surface until around August 6, and when it did, traders reacted instantly. It's the fourth time since 2013 that Congo has moved to restrict concentrate exports, and this time the message is different: process it at home, or don't ship it at all. Who's Exposed The companies caught in the middle read like a who's who of global mining. CMOC, the world's largest cobalt producer, is exposed. So is Glencore. So are Huayou Cobalt, Zijin Mining, Ivanhoe Mines and Eurasian Resources Group. Each now faces the same binary choice: invest in smelting capacity inside Congo, where power and infrastructure gaps have made that historically difficult, or watch ore sit in the ground while waivers get sorted out case by case. Neither is quick. Here's the part that doesn't show up in the daily price quote. LME warehouse stockpiles fell for 42 straight sessions, the longest losing streak since 2014, down to 204,975 tonnes, and nearly half of that remaining metal is already earmarked for withdrawal. That's left the market thin enough that the August LME contract traded at a $370-a-tonne premium over September, the widest one-month spread since the 2021 squeeze that forced the exchange into emergency intervention. The cash-to-three-month spread hit $434 a tonne, a five-year high. Traders have described what's brewing at London warehouses as a bidding war, where holders of short futures positions get forced to pay up just to secure physical metal. Metal is scarce, plain and simple. Alibaba's Cloud Unit Posts Fastest Growth in 22 Quarters as AI Spending Bites https://startupfortune.com/alibabas-cloud-unit-posts-fastest-growth-in-22-quarters-as-ai-spending-bites/ Alibaba's cloud unit posted 45% revenue growth in the June quarter, its fastest pace in 22 quarters, as AI products now make up 35% of cloud revenue. Group profit fell 75% on heavy AI capex, but CEO Eddie Wu says the spending will pay back within three years. - Alibaba cloud unit fastest growth in 22 quarters https://startupfortune.com/alibabas-cloud-unit-posts-fastest-growth-in-22-quarters-as-ai-spending-bites/ - AI spending driving enterprise cloud revenue growth 2026 https://startupfortune.com/alibabas-cloud-unit-posts-fastest-growth-in-22-quarters-as-ai-spending-bites/ Chile isn't helping. Cochilco, the country's copper commission, cut its 2026 output forecast to 5.27 million tonnes after a weak first half. It also raised its price forecast for the year, to $5.95 a pound from an earlier $5.55 estimate. Codelco production ran 4.8% below last year's pace. China, which Cochilco expects to account for 57% of global copper demand this year at 16 million tonnes, has shown some softening, and that's part of what pulled prices off their August 7 peak. The Real Driver: AI None of that changes the structural story, though. A single one-gigawatt AI data center needs roughly 50,000 metric tons of copper for cabling, cooling and power distribution. That's one data center. Industry estimates put annual global AI data center buildout at around 15 gigawatts of new capacity a year, which alone adds about 750,000 tonnes of fresh copper demand annually, on top of everything the grid itself needs. Wood Mackenzie projects AI infrastructure could require roughly 1.1 million tonnes a year of copper for grid upgrades alone by 2030. That demand doesn't pause. Not because Chile had a soft quarter. Not because Congo issued an order in June. Frankly, this is the collision that copper bulls have been waiting for. You've got a metal that data centers and transmission lines need in growing volume - the electric grid needs more of it too. Add a warehouse squeeze in London on top of that, and the record set on August 7 starts to look less like a spike and more like a floor. The pullback to the mid-$6 range doesn't mean the pressure eased. It means the market caught its breath before the next leg. Whether Glencore and CMOC, among others, choose to build smelters in Congo or simply wait out the waiver process will shape how much concentrate actually reaches global buyers over the next year. Either way, the metal that used to be a quiet input for wiring and plumbing is now a headline commodity, and the AI buildout is the reason why. 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