From the second industrial revolution until the mid-twentieth century, the criterion for evaluating a country's industrial level was the production of steel, but when human civilization began to move towards the age of electrification, the level of copper production has quietly become the bottom code of the industrial system.
Huge demand and strategic position of copper
When it comes to "smelting", many people's minds are still stuck on the traditional image of burning boilers and making steel, as if it were still a hot, smoky industrial scene. But the fact has long been quietly changed. Modern smelting not only in the process of comprehensive upgrading, but also in the energy efficiency, resource recycling and strategic significance to open up a new pattern. Especially copper, from basic raw materials to strategic resources, is becoming the national industrial competitiveness of the "invisible engine".
The process of modern copper smelting is far more complicated than people think. Smelting is only the starting point, in order to get high purity refined copper, but also need to go through a number of processes such as blowing, refining, electrolysis and so on. One of the most critical and "power-burning" aspects of the process is electrolysis.
According to the standard of "Copper Smelting Industry Standard Conditions", the energy consumption of electrolysis process is capped at 100 kg of standard coal per ton, which translates into about 800 kWh of electricity. Thanks to the continuous technological breakthroughs of domestic enterprises in recent years, the head enterprise has compressed the energy consumption of electrolysis to 300~500 kWh, which has significantly improved the overall efficiency.
In 2023, China's electrolytic copper production reached 13.64 million tons. Even according to the minimum energy consumption calculation, only the electrolysis of a ring, it consumes about 4 billion degrees of electricity - this is equivalent to the total electricity consumption of the U.S. national population for a week. The birth of copper, so to speak, is itself an energy-intensive miracle.
At the same time, the power construction of copper demand is equally amazing. 2023 China's power system construction of copper amounted to 6.81 million tons, which means that nearly half of the electrolytic copper is directly used for power grid expansion. Copper not only "produces with electricity", but also "serves with electricity", constituting a closed loop between energy and metal.
This closed loop is not only a physical sense of energy return, but also a concrete expression of industrial philosophy. Copper is both a conductor and a carrier, a raw material and a product in key areas such as extra-high voltage transmission, new wind energy and energy storage systems. Copper is driving industrial society from the "mechanical age" to "eco-intelligence", building a paradigm shift of "using copper to drive the future".
The higher the quality of development, the more prominent the attribute of copper as "strategic hard currency". The support of copper is indispensable behind every upgrade of the national grid and every speed-up of new energy. And every degree of copper's power efficiency improvement may be magnified into a key comparative advantage in the global industrial game.
If the application of copper in traditional power consolidates its basic role as the "industrial skeleton", the emerging industries represented by new energy vehicles and AI have completely rewritten the strategic position of copper.
Taking new energy vehicles as an example, the copper usage of a pure tram is as high as 83 kilograms, which is about three times that of a fuel vehicle, and it is concentrated in the core aspects such as motor, cable and energy storage components etc. In 2024, China's pure tram is expected to produce 7.9 million units, and it is conservatively estimated that it has already consumed copper of about 660,000 tons.
And the AI industry's demand for copper, although relatively small, but the same can not be ignored. According to Everbright Securities report, 1MW data center uses about 65.8 tons of copper. According to CITIC Securities forecast, in 2025 China's data center new installed capacity is expected to be 5GW (i.e., 5,000MW), which will pull 330,000 tons of incremental copper demand.
Add the two together, and copper demand in the new energy and AI sector increases by about 990,000 tons. Behind this seemingly modest figure is a deep reconfiguration of the resource attributes and the logic of the geopolitical game. The U.S. "Inflation Reduction Act" on the local copper mining tax breaks, the EU carbon border tax on processed copper products to implement green certification, are announcing: copper, has become a next-generation technology leader in the "metal pass".
This also explains why Trump in the early days of his presidency will be listed as "national security lifeblood resources," the fundamental reason. The battlefield for resources is extending from oil and chips to this silent but irreplaceable red metal.
From bronze to electrolytic copper, across two thousand years later, copper once again stood in the wind and waves of history. It is no longer just a conductive material, but a "strategic chassis" linking energy, science and technology and national destiny. In this new industrial era, who mastered the copper, who mastered the initiative of the future industry.
