Data Centers Need Copper, Concrete, and Cooling. Here Are 3 Boring Industrials Set to Cash In.
Key Points
AI data center growth is driving demand for copper, concrete, and cooling.
Freeport-McMoRan, Vulcan Materials, and Vertiv are well positioned to benefit.
Forecasts suggest ongoing, multiyear growth opportunities for these companies.
It's no secret that spending on AI data centers is booming, and projections for hyperscaler spending suggest the boom will continue. This will create opportunities for ongoing marginal growth for companies that provide the raw materials used in construction, such as copper miner Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), construction materials company Vulcan Materials (NYSE: VMC), and data center infrastructure company Vertiv (NYSE: VRT).
Copper and Freeport-McMoRan
The chart below shows the scale of the spending increase, and although not all of it is allocated to physical data centers, it indicates a considerable marginal increase in end demand for these three companies.
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Data source: Visible Alpha. Chart by author.
You can't build a data center without the copper to create and transmit power to it, and also within it. According to S&P Global's "Copper in the age of AI" report, AI and data centers are set to contribute 13.7% of total copper demand growth from 2025 to 2030, with the energy transition (EVs, renewable energy, transmission, and distribution) contributing 59%. Much of the demand for transmission and distribution also comes from data center build-outs.
The forecast 18% increase in copper demand from 2025 to 2030 may not sound like much, but it implies a gradually widening gap between demand and baseline copper supply, which will continue to grow until, by 2040, copper demand of 42.3 million tons is forecast to exceed supply by 10.1 million tons.
These forecasts imply a bullish outlook for copper prices, which is great news for Freeport-McMoRan, a copper company with ample reserves, opportunities to expand existing sites, and a nascent low-cost leaching technology to recover copper from existing stockpiles.
Image source: Getty Images.
Vulcan Materials
The aggregates company Vulcan Materials also explicitly linked electricity infrastructure demand to data centers. Speaking on the company's second-quarter earnings call, CEO Ronnie Pruitt said, "Large project opportunities continue to drive nonresidential activity, particularly data centers." In addition to the direct demand coming from data centers, he noted, "We've also seen a pickup in LNG projects along with energy generation and power infrastructure expansion, which is really being driven by the data centers."
The marginal increase in demand from non-residential construction, driven by power/data centers, is supporting the kind of "slow and steady" demand Pruitt covets, and it will also underpin demand while Vulcan waits for the more cyclical residential sector to return.
US Residential Construction Spending data by YCharts
Vertiv, an AI infrastructure company
Vertiv's power, cooling, and IT infrastructure solutions have made it the darling of investors looking to buy stocks with exposure to AI build-out spending. As such, investors closely watch its order patterns as early indicators of data center spending.
The company's latest update indicates an end market that continues to strengthen. Discussing its order pipeline at a recent Goldman Sachs conference in September, Vertiv CEO Giordano Albertazzi said: "We see no sign of weakening. If anything, we're seeing strength that the pipeline is getting stronger and stronger, and our customers' resolve and building plan continue to evolve in the right direction."
The full-year guidance on the second-quarter earnings call was for a 37% increase in revenue and a 60% increase in earnings per share (EPS) over 2025, but if Albertazzi's commentary leads to stronger order growth, then investors can pencil in more revenue and earnings growth in the future.
That growth is likely to be enhanced by Vertiv's exposure to a new class of high-voltage and higher-productivity data centers for which Nvidia is developing architecture. Vertiv believes commercial adoption of the solutions it's developed for the new 800 volt direct current (VDC) will begin in the second half of 2027, with "volumes in 2028." That should kick off a new growth phase for the company.
Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Goldman Sachs Group, Nvidia, Oracle, and Vertiv. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.