Major mining operations are now stepping up to fuel the AI boom. Rio Tinto is shipping copper from its Arizona operations to Amazon, specifically for powering the tech giant's AI data center infrastructure. This move reveals something critical: the exploding demand for computing power is creating unprecedented pressure on the supply chain for essential minerals. Copper, along with lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements, has become the new bottleneck in the race to build out AI capabilities. It's not just about chip fabrication anymore—the entire physical backbone of AI infrastructure, from power systems to cooling and transmission, depends on raw materials. As data centers scale globally to handle training and inference workloads, miners and tech companies are being forced into tighter partnerships. This trend signals a fundamental shift: mineral scarcity could become a real constraint on how quickly the AI sector can expand. Whether it's crypto networks, traditional cloud computing, or the emerging AI infrastructure race, one thing's clear—whoever controls the mineral supply chain controls the infrastructure future.