Back to the Copper Age! Why Stars Have Aligned for a 10,000-Year-Old Divine Metal
Copper is having the kind of comeback most pop stars can only dream of. After 10,000 years of loyal service—from Neolithic beads to Bronze Age bling—this so‑called “divine metal” has quietly positioned itself as the VIP pass to our wired, electrified, decarbonized future. While everyone was arguing about crypto and AI, copper was busy becoming the bottleneck for clean energy, data centers, and electric everything, turning a humble reddish metal into the market’s favorite old god in a new pantheon of tech.
What makes copper so enduringly powerful is a simple mix of physics and history: it’s abundant enough to mine at scale, but rare enough to be precious; soft enough to shape, yet conductive enough to move electrons and heat with remarkable efficiency—traits that lifted humanity out of the Stone Age and now underpin solar farms, EV motors, grid upgrades, and the guts of digital infrastructure.[1][5] The same properties that once supercharged trade networks and early state societies are now driving a new resource race, as governments and companies scramble to secure supplies for energy transition plans, urbanization, and AI-driven demand. In other words, we are not just revisiting the Copper Age—we’re upgrading it.
