Artificial Intelligence is completely reshaping life as we know it and nowadays, there are few industries that haven’t been touched by AI. But few people realize how the AI boom has driven the copper market to new highs.
Copper prices have outperformed both gold and silver this year and could rise another 20% this year to hit $12,000 per ton thanks to the rise in AI technology and the buildout of new data centers, according to Goldman Sachs.1
Commodity trader Trafigura says AI has the potential to add one million tonnes of annual copper demand by 2030, which is equivalent to the total production of Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, in 2022.2
The problem is, new copper discoveries are far and few between and supply is dwindling. Growing supply concerns are prompting tech leaders like Microsoft Founder, Bill Gates and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to invest into the copper mining industry to secure future supply for their AI ventures.3
Here is a summary of our top stocks to watch in 2024 to capitalize on copper surge and growing AI sector:
- Freeport Resources Inc. (TSXV:FRI) (OTCQB:FEERF)
- Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
- Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT)
1. Freeport Resources Inc. (TSXV:FRI) (OTCQB:FEERF)
Freeport Resources Inc. (TSXV:FRI) (OTCQB:FEERF) is a Canadian mineral exploration company primarily focused on advancing the Yandera copper-gold-molybdenum project in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Spanning approximately 245.5 square kilometers, the Yandera project is one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world.
The Yandera Project is strategically situated within the New Guinea Orogenic Belt, which hosts world-class ore bodies like Grasberg, Ok Tedi, Porgera, Hidden Valley, Wafi-Golpu, and Frieda River. Freeport’s management and board bring significant in-country experience and a proven track record in developing and financing large-scale resource projects.
The economic impact is anticipated to extend across five provinces, generating wealth for generations. This includes strategic road and highway construction, power generation, and port infrastructure. The development will support communities and create jobs throughout the Yandera Corridor.
While Freeport continues discussions with strategic partners to advance its 100%-owned Yandera Project, it has begun an internal project optimization review. This review aims to enhance the project’s economics, potentially utilizing breakthrough direct sulphide leaching technologies to significantly reduce capital and operational expenditures. Recent copper prices have exceeded $10,000 per ton ($4.00 per pound), driven by unprecedented structural changes in demand due to the global energy transition. The Yandera Copper Project’s proximity to Asia, the world’s largest copper refiner and consumer, makes it an attractive long-term source of copper supply.
Sponsored
The World is Going Cuckoo for Copper
Copper is the lynchpin of the clean energy revolution and crucial for AI – That’s why billionaire tech leaders like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are betting big on this market.
Copper’s bull run is just getting started and copper stocks are set to shine brightly this year.
Ready to light it up? Click here to learn more about our top stock pick for the copper supercycle
2. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Nvidia leads in AI hardware, while Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) excels in software. Microsoft’s 2019 investment in OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, has tripled its share price in five years. This partnership enabled AI integration into Microsoft Azure and the launch of the Copilot AI assistant on Windows, offering diverse monetization avenues.
Copilot is on 225 million Windows PCs, with subscriptions for Word and Excel. This AI assistant is poised to drive long-term growth, particularly in the business segment, as evidenced by the 15% year-over-year growth in Office 365 commercial revenue last quarter.4
Microsoft’s Azure saw a 31% revenue increase last quarter, fueled by AI. Bing and Edge integration also boosted search revenue. Given its recurring revenue streams from software services, Microsoft presents a relatively secure investment in AI. With a net income of $86 billion over the last year, doubling over the past five years, Microsoft appears well-positioned to maintain this momentum.
Sponsored
The World is Going Cuckoo for Copper
Copper is the lynchpin of the clean energy revolution and crucial for AI – That’s why billionaire tech leaders like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are betting big on this market.
Copper’s bull run is just getting started and copper stocks are set to shine brightly this year.
Ready to light it up? Click here to learn more about our top stock pick for the copper supercycle.
3. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock is up 25% this year, but analysts believe there’s more room for growth. JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth highlighted Google’s aggressive pace in AI advancements, which he expects to overshadow the company’s short-term setbacks.5
Google just unveiled Gemini 1.5 Flash, the latest addition to its Gemini series, which excels in swiftly summarizing conversations, captioning images and videos, and extracting data from extensive documents and tables. Alongside this, Google has introduced the enhanced Gemini 1.5 Pro model, which can process multiple large documents totaling 1,500 pages or summarize 100 emails efficiently. According to Sissie Hsiao, Vice President and General Manager for Gemini experiences at Google, the Gemini 1.5 Pro will soon be capable of handling an hour of video content and codebases exceeding 30,000 lines.6
The company is also expanding its research-oriented AI tool, NotebookLM, beyond the US to over 200 countries and territories, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, and the U.K. NotebookLM, now powered by the advanced Gemini 1.5 Pro language model, enhances document understanding and reasoning by generating summaries and suggesting follow-up questions based on document content.7
4. Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) boasts a market cap of around $1.26 trillion and has surged over 90% in the past year. Despite this growth, Meta’s stock remains appealing with a price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 1.14.
The company is strategically using AI to enhance monetization of its video and messaging services like Reels and WhatsApp. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is bullish on AI’s potential in smart glasses and business messaging, and is committed to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).8
5. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) may not be the first AI stock that comes to mind for investors, but its use of the technology is significant. The focus is on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is set for substantial growth. Many companies looking to incorporate generative AI and large language models (LLMs) lack the necessary in-house computing power and turn to cloud providers like AWS (Google Cloud is a competitor).
AWS allows users to easily scale up or down based on workload, and after a year of consolidation in 2023, AWS is back to growth in 2024. Q1 saw AWS revenue increase 17% year over year to $25 billion, accounting for 18% of Amazon’s total sales.9 Despite this, the division remains highly profitable, with operating income up 84% year over year to $9.4 billion, comprising 62% of operating profits.
Given AWS’s critical role and its growth, fueled by the AI surge, Amazon stands to benefit significantly from these developments.