Eric Sepanek
SBC Founder
Eric Sepanek is the founder of Scottsdale Bullion & Coin, established in 2011. With extensive experience in the precious metals industry, he is dedicated to educating Americans on the wealth preservation power of gold and silver.
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Artificial intelligence might seem like a purely digital revolution, but the infrastructure supporting it is intensely physical.
For context, Goldman Sachs Global Institute estimates global investment in AI infrastructure could total roughly $7.6 trillion between 2026 and 2031.
Those vast investments are building out the tangible backbone of AI, including advanced semiconductors, data centers, power systems, servers, high-speed networking, and electrical-grid infrastructure.
Gold and silver are deeply embedded throughout this ecosystem, thanks to unique physical properties that have sustained their industrial use for decades. Thus, AI’s rapid expansion is creating a new source of industrial demand for both gold and silver.
AI Runs on Gold and Silver
Gold and silver play complementary yet disparate roles inside the rapidly expanding physical AI infrastructure.
Similar to gold’s common uses across advanced electronics, AI technology utilizes the metal’s corrosion resistance. On the other hand, silver’s unmatched electrical conductivity makes it essential in computing hardware and the electrical systems that deliver power.
The amount of physical precious metal inside any single AI-related component may be minimal, but explosive AI growth and the massive infrastructure behind it multiply that demand at scale.
More specifically, Goldman Sachs notes that leading AI systems can pack 72 AI chips into a single rack, with large-scale facilities linking hardware through hundreds of thousands of kilometers of cabling.
| Gold | Silver | |
|---|---|---|
| Key Advantage | Corrosion-resistant, highly reliable connections | Highest electrical conductivity of any metal |
| AI Uses | Chips, memory, circuit boards, connectors, networking | Circuit boards, contacts, switches, relays, power electronics |
| Broader Role | Concentrated in advanced computing hardware | Extends into data centers, power systems, and electrical grids |
Beyond this structural demand, the AI buildout is accelerating rapidly. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers jumped nearly 50% in 2025 alone, while AI-specific data-center capacity has more than tripled in about 18 months.
That combination of enormous scale and rapid expansion is what turns tiny amounts of gold and silver scattered across individual components into a potentially meaningful source of precious-metals demand. The read-through for investors isn’t limited to physical demand, either some analysts have raised concerns that the AI bubble could eventually cool, a scenario in which gold’s traditional role as a safe haven becomes just as relevant as its industrial one.
AI Quickly Reshapes Precious Metals Demand
Although AI really only entered the mainstream with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, the technology is already leaving a measurable imprint on the precious metals demand landscape.
Gold Demand Is Already Responding
According to the World Gold Council, electronics gold demand rose 3% year-over-year to 69.3 tonnes in Q1 2026, its highest quarterly level since late 2021, with AI infrastructure helping drive the increase.
The trend continued in Q2, when demand climbed another 4% year-over-year to 68.3 tonnes. The WGC called AI infrastructure the dominant growth engine for high-end electronics, helping offset weaker traditional consumer-electronics demand.
AI hardware could also create recurring demand. Goldman Sachs estimates AI chips generally have an economic useful life of just four to six years, potentially requiring several rounds of replacement during the much longer lifespan of a data center.
Silver Has the Bigger Growth Runway
Silver’s dual use as an industrial and investment metal gives it broader AI demand exposure.
The Silver Institute reports that electrical and electronics demand hit a record 465.6 million ounces in 2024, supported heavily by AI-related applications.
Meanwhile, CPM Group expects electrical and electronic silver consumption to grow 3.9% annually from 2023 through 2033, putting annual use close to 70% higher by 2033 than a decade earlier, further accelerated partly by AI expansion.
Silver Demand Extends Beyond the Server
Silver’s exposure to AI stretches far beyond individual components inside a server. The shiny metal’s electrical conductivity makes it an essential component of electrical systems, and AI is infamously energy-intensive.
According to the International Energy Agency, global data-center electricity consumption is projected to nearly double by 2030. The facilities themselves are also becoming more infrastructure-intensive. Goldman Sachs notes that next-generation AI data centers can cost an estimated $15 million to $20 million per megawatt, compared with around $10 million for traditional facilities.
Meeting that demand requires more generation, transmission, transformers, switchgear, and grid upgrades all of which rely on silver-containing components. As a result, silver has two distinct AI-driven demand sources: the hardware running AI and the electrical infrastructure powering it.
Silver Is Becoming a Strategic Resource
Silver’s growing importance to advanced technology is also attracting government attention.
In November 2025, the U.S. added silver to its official Critical Minerals List for the first time, formally recognizing its importance to the economy and national security and the vulnerability of its supply chain.
More recently, China tightened oversight of silver exports by imposing strict qualification requirements on companies participating in state-traded exports during 2026 and 2027, citing the need to strengthen management of rare-metal exports. For context, China produced about 13% of the world’s mined silver in 2025, according to the Silver Institute, making it the third-largest global producer.
Booming AI Silver Demand Pressuring a Constrained Market
The rapidly rising AI demand for silver is emerging at a fragile moment for supply. The market is expected to enter its sixth consecutive annual deficit in 2026 as demand continues to outpace supply, all while mine production remains relatively flat.
With nearly 58% of silver demand coming from industrial uses, according to the Silver Institute, much of the metal entering the market is absorbed into applications, which limits the amount of silver readily available to respond when investment or industrial demand suddenly spikes. That scarcity is compounded by a simple reality of how much silver is left above ground decades of industrial consumption have steadily drawn down existing stockpiles, leaving less of a buffer to absorb sudden demand spikes.
This combination of persistent deficits and constrained available supply can leave the silver market increasingly vulnerable to supply squeezes when demand surges.
AI’s disruption isn’t confined to physical infrastructure and mining supply chains, either. The same technology reshaping precious metals demand is also introducing new AI-driven threats to your savings, another reminder that gold and silver’s role as a hedge extends well beyond their industrial applications.