China’s Yangshan copper import premium rose above $200 a ton, a record in Fastmarkets data going back to 2017, Bloomberg News reported on 29 October. Shanghai Metals Market put the week’s average registered warrant premium at $193 a ton and the bill-of-lading premium at $180, with both breaking through $200 during the week.
China’s bonded-zone copper stock of 26,800 tons, as SMM reported it on 29 October, would supply roughly 0.7 to 1.3 GW of data-centre capacity at the 20 to 40 tons of copper per megawatt that SMM cites, by our arithmetic.
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The key insight: At 20 to 40 tonnes of copper per megawatt, the 26,800 tonnes in China’s bonded stock would cover about 0.7 to 1.3 GW of data centres by our arithmetic, less than our own earlier estimate of about 2.2 GW for Musk’s 1.2 million Blackwells.
The Yangshan premium is what Chinese buyers pay above London Metal Exchange prices for copper delivered to Shanghai’s Yangshan port, a hub for Chinese imports. Bloomberg reported that the premium spiked past $200 on Wednesday, 28 October, and held near that level.
SMM’s weekly review for 26 to 29 October gave a warrant premium range of $181 to $205 a ton and a bill-of-lading range of $173 to $188, and said imported copper premiums “shot up sharply to a historic high”.
China’s bonded-zone copper stock on 29 October (26,800 tons, SMM) against the copper a roughly 2.2 GW AI data-centre build would use at 20 to 40 tons per megawatt (SMM, citing MINING), by FourWeekMBA’s arithmetic. Chart: FourWeekMBA.
Tight Supply on Both Sides
On the LME, the spot premium over three-month futures widened to $217 a ton, the highest since mid-August, according to Bloomberg. Benchmark three-month copper fell 1.1% to $14,318.50 a ton the same day.
SMM listed the causes as tight domestic raw-material supply, concentrated smelter maintenance, low social inventory, high domestic spot premiums, typhoon-related shipping delays and high LME front-end backwardation. Bloomberg reported that traders have shipped hundreds of thousands of tons to the United States ahead of possible tariffs on refined copper, and that Chinese stocks sit below typical seasonal levels.
SMM reported bonded-zone copper inventory of 26,800 tons on 29 October, down 1,200 tons in a week.
The Data-Centre Link
SMM, citing data compiled by MINING, wrote on 16 October that “a data center uses roughly 20 to 40 tonnes of copper for each megawatt of power”. At that range, the roughly 2.2 GW we estimated for Musk’s 1.2 million Blackwells would take about 44,000 to 88,000 tons of copper, by our arithmetic, more than China’s entire bonded-zone stock.
The Kobeissi Letter wrote on X on 2 November that the premium “has more than doubled over the last 3 months” and that “Since the beginning of 2026, this figure has surged +700%”. We could not verify those two changes against Fastmarkets or SMM data, so they are reported as the post’s claims.
The Structural Read
As we read the premium, it is the price Chinese buyers pay above the LME for imported copper at Yangshan, so a record level says import demand in China is outbidding supply that reaches the port.
As we read the SMM review, the drivers it lists sit on both sides: tight raw-material supply and smelter maintenance on supply, low social inventory and high domestic spot premiums on demand.
As we read the data-centre comparison, it is a scale check, not a cause: none of the sources attributes the premium to AI demand.
SMM Yangshan Copper Weekly Review, 29 October 2026
“Imported copper premiums shot up sharply to a historic high”
Three Implications
FOR COPPER BUYERS Bloomberg reported that the LME spot premium over futures widened to $217 a ton, the highest since mid-August, while three-month copper fell 1.1% to $14,318.50.
FOR INVENTORY WATCHERS SMM put bonded-zone copper stock at 26,800 tonnes, down 1,200 tonnes on the week.
FOR DATA-CENTRE BUILDERS SMM, citing MINING, gives 20 to 40 tonnes of copper per megawatt of data-centre power; at that rate, 2.2 GW needs 44,000 to 88,000 tonnes by our arithmetic.
The framework puts it this way: “Every ChatGPT query, every autonomous vehicle, every data center promising to reshape civilization depends on copper mined in Chile”.
As we read it, the Yangshan record is one measurable price on that dependency. The framework does not discuss the premium, and the sources do not tie this week’s level to AI demand.
Fastmarkets’ daily series was not available to us directly; the record is as Bloomberg reported it from Fastmarkets data. SMM’s premium ranges and Bloomberg’s Fastmarkets figure come from different reports. The 20 to 40 tons per megawatt range is one figure SMM cites from MINING.
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China’s copper import premium passed $200 a ton, a Fastmarkets record back to 2017, as bonded stocks fell to 26,800 tons, enough for roughly 0.7 to 1.3 GW of data centres at SMM’s cited intensity, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. The record and LME figures come from Bloomberg News’s 29 October report citing Fastmarkets data; weekly premiums and bonded inventory from Shanghai Metals Market’s 29 October review; the copper-per-megawatt range from SMM’s 16 October report citing MINING. The capacity comparisons are our arithmetic. The Kobeissi Letter’s growth figures are reported as its claims.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
