National telecoms provider could make $2.7 billion selling recycled copper in AI boom — BT to strip 200,000 tons from legacy network
BT, the UK’s largest telecommunications provider, is slowly upgrading its entire network to fiber, with the company looking to move residential endpoints away from copper, and it seems that it will make a killing when it recycles its old cables. According to The Guardian, the company has signed a deal with EMR, one of the largest cable recycling companies in the country, for the recovery of around 200,000 tons of copper over a span of four years. Although the total value of the deal is unclear, the latter has also already paid more than USD 134 million (GBP 99 million) to the telecoms company for a few thousand tons of copper. Aside from the deal with EMR, BT and its subsidiary, Openreach, could also sell the recovered copper directly on the spot market.
More than 22,000 metric tons have already been recovered from the system since BT started its network upgrade, with the metal costing around USD 8,500 per metric ton on the market. If the company sold all that material in the open market, it would have made revenue of USD 187 million. However, the massive AI-driven demand for copper has pushed prices to a record high of more than USD 14,000 per metric ton. The upgrade work is expected to continue well into the 2030s, with Openreach estimating that it could still recover up to 200,000 metric tons of material. That means the company could make an estimated USD 2.7 to 2.8 billion just from the sale of these old network cables.
The AI boom is pushing up demand for several industries — from high-tech products like memory and storage chips and jet engines to “exotic” materials such as rare earth elements and glass cloth fibers. Most people will not equate copper to AI data centers, especially as the PCBs used in their servers often contain so little of the metal, relatively speaking. AI data centers are also switching to optical interconnects and silicon photonics, meaning the internal networks of these data centers will increasingly rely on fiber optics.
However, data centers are forecast to use 194 gigawatts of power by 2035, and all this power can only be transferred via metal cables. While you can also use aluminum wires to transmit power, copper is often the preferred choice for its stability, better electrical conductivity, increased durability, and superior thermal performance. So, as AI hyperscalers expand their operations and build more data centers, the demand for copper wires will also increase accordingly. Utility providers will also need to purchase more cables as they upgrade the grid to deliver the electricity needed by the AI infrastructure.
The AI-powered boom for copper material is a win-win situation for BT, Openreach, and their subscribers. The people will now get end-to-end fiber connections in their homes, hopefully giving them better speed and reliability, while the providers are basically getting a discount on the upgrades that they’re making on their networks.
