A 250 GW data center pipeline does not run on software. It runs on copper-heavy switchgear, liquid cooling loops, and long-dated gas supply.

Two of today's names just posted record orders and raised guidance, and the third is the largest US natural gas producer, building a marketing arm to sell straight to power-hungry customers.

Here's how most TV platforms work: you hand over your budget, and before your ad ever airs, a chunk of it disappears into platform fees and markups.

Universal Ads skips all of that. No platform fees. No hidden markups. Just your brand buying TV directly on 20+ premium publishers like NBCUniversal, FOX, and Paramount. Fully self-serve.

No TV commercial yet? Our self-serve tools and creative partners can help you get one made fast.

New advertisers: use code UALAUNCH26 at sign-up and get $2,500 in matched ad credits when you spend $2,500. That's double the reach for your first TV campaign.

Start your TV campaign today

Wood Mackenzie is now tracking more than 250 gigawatts of data center projects worldwide, more than three times the pipeline of a year ago, and expects AI data center power demand to top 1,000 terawatt hours by 2035.

The IEA sees total data center electricity use more than doubling from about 415 terawatt hours in 2024 to around 945 by 2030, and notes that wait times for transformers and cables have roughly doubled in three years.

If you are sizing power exposure, those lead times are the constraint to track.

Here is what matters for you: the IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 still projects a copper supply deficit of about 25% by 2035, down from around 30% in last year's edition only because projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia are advancing.

Berenberg sees the shortfall widening to almost 32% of mined supply by 2040. That tight physical market is why copper has held up far better than silver, platinum and palladium through the recent metals selloff.

Your takeaway: You want to own the companies that benefit whether the hyperscalers build on-grid or off-grid.

Grid constraints are pushing some operators toward higher-cost on-site power, and every one of those builds still needs copper bus bars, steel enclosures and gas-fired generation.

The miners are one way to play it. The companies turning that metal into switchgear and cooling systems are another.

Less than two years into the current Trump term, the federal government has pushed projects through accelerated permitting, taken equity stakes in mineral companies, offered price floors and offtakes, expanded loans and grants, and put mineral security near the center of US economic and defense policy, as The Northern Miner laid out this week.

Read it the way you would read any big new customer showing up: Washington is no longer a passive regulator of the domestic mining sector.

The trade side moved too.

The Commerce Department's definition of "US content" for USMCA metal goods took effect October 14, and new presidential proclamations adjusting steel, aluminum, and copper duties ended the tariff exclusions for Canada, Mexico, and the EU.

If you hold companies that import those metals, check how much of their cost base just changed.

Your takeaway: Domestic processing capacity is being subsidized into existence, and the trade wall around US-made metal just got a few feet taller.

You want exposure to US-listed names that process, fabricate, or move domestic metal, because those are the businesses sitting behind that wall.

Citi cut its three-month lithium carbonate and hydroxide price targets to $12,000 a ton, from $20,000 and $17,000, respectively, and cut spodumene to $1,200 from $2,000. It also lowered its estimates for all three through the end of 2028.

Chinese lithium carbonate futures fell 8.4% in the week to October 30, per Shanghai Metals Market, and Fastmarkets' CIF Asia carbonate assessment sat at $12.80 to $15.00 per kg on October 27, down from a 2026 high near $25 in May.

The story is simple. Expectations for energy storage demand growth got walked back, Chinese downstream buyers pulled back, and uncertainty about future supply kept them on the sidelines. Cobalt sentiment is cautious too.

Your takeaway: You do not need to catch the lithium bottom to make money in battery metals, and this is not the moment to try.

Keep your battery metal exposure focused on producers with cash, not developers burning it, and let copper and uranium, where the deficit math is tighter, carry the growth side of your book.

AI is moving into the physical economy.  

Elon is building it. Jensen sees it in Agriculture. Washington is backing it. And DIT AgTech is already putting it to work in livestock. 

Most investors haven’t connected the dots yet. 

At $1 a share, you still can.

Connect the Dots

Eaton Corporation (NYSE: ETN)

Eaton sells the switchgear, busway, uninterruptible power supplies and transformers that sit between the grid and the server rack, and every one of those products is a brick of copper, aluminum and steel wrapped in engineering.

Third-quarter results on November 3 showed how hard that demand is running: sales rose 28% to $8.9 billion with 19% organic growth, data center revenue grew 65%, and data center orders rose 101%.

Electrical backlog is up 46% from a year ago, segment margins hit a record 25.3%, and management raised full-year organic growth guidance to 13% to 15% and adjusted EPS guidance to $13.70 to $13.80.

It is also buying COL Group to add medium-voltage capacity in Europe. Eaton says the announced data center projects it tracks now total 366 gigawatts, against an installed base of about 50.

If you want copper-intensive AI exposure without betting on a single mine, this is the order book to watch.

nVent Electric (NYSE: NVT)

nVent makes the electrical enclosures, cable management and liquid cooling systems that hyperscalers are bolting onto GPU racks.

Third-quarter sales rose 44% to a record $1.5 billion, all of it organic, with record orders and a backlog that grew sequentially to $2.6 billion.

Infrastructure, its data center-led vertical, grew organic sales more than 70%, and new products added roughly 30 points of growth.

Management raised full-year guidance to reported sales growth of 48% to 49% and adjusted EPS of $5.36 to $5.39, up from $5.00 to $5.10.

On October 1, it closed the roughly $1.75 billion Maverick Power deal, adding low- and medium-voltage switchgear and 800-volt DC power distribution, which nVent says lifts its data center opportunity to about $2 million per megawatt.

The shares slipped after the beat, which gives you a chance to look at a copper-intensive cooling and power business while it digests a big acquisition.

Expand Energy (NASDAQ: EXE)

Expand Energy, formed from the Chesapeake-Southwestern merger, is the largest natural gas producer in the United States, producing about 7.54 Bcfe per day in the third quarter from the Haynesville and Appalachia.

It is turning itself into a gas seller, not just a gas driller: it closed the roughly $1.4 billion Twin Eagle marketing acquisition on September 16 to reach data centers, industrial customers, and buyers away from major pipelines, and it holds a 20-year deal to take about 1.15 million tonnes a year of LNG from Delfin.

Third-quarter net income was $519 million, or $2.24 a share, adjusted EBITDAX was $1.23 billion, leverage sits at 0.8x, and year-to-date buybacks total about $900 million, or 4% of shares outstanding.

The honest risk: management is curtailing some output because the near-term gas market is weakening, and Henry Hub is stuck under $3. You are buying the scale and the marketing reach before new LNG and data center demand shows up in the price.

Gold: $4,070/oz. Down about 7% YTD from the $4,350 January open and far below its 52-week high near $5,590.

Silver: $52/oz. Down about 27% YTD from the $71 January open and far below its 52-week high near $121. The industrial draw from solar and electronics is intact; the speculators are the ones who left.

Copper: $6.40/lb. Up about 13% YTD from the $5.65 January open and the standout of the metals complex through the recent selloff. Berenberg models a deficit of almost 32% of mined supply by 2040.

Uranium: Term market firm. 88 GWe is under construction globally per the WNA, up 16%. US utilities have 186.3 million pounds of unfilled requirements through 2035, and domestic-origin uranium made up just 7% of 2025 deliveries.

Lithium: Carbonate at $12.80 to $15.00/kg CIF Asia per Fastmarkets (Oct. 27), down from about $25 in May. Citi cut its three-month target to $12,000/t from $20,000. A producer-only trade for now.

Aluminum: Heading back toward surplus on growing Indonesian supply, per LME Week discussions. New US proclamations ending the Canada, Mexico and EU exclusions give domestic producers a tailwind the headline price doesn't show.

Platinum: Fell about 7.5% between October 28 and November 3 to around $1,425/oz and is technically oversold. The autocatalyst and hydrogen demand story needs patience.

Natural Gas: Just under $3/MMBtu. Data center and LNG demand are building, but the near-term market is soft enough that Expand is curtailing some output.

Metal Trend Exploration Focus

The AI buildout is a physical infrastructure story dressed up as a software story.

That is why copper held up through the metals selloff, why uranium's term market keeps grinding, and why the three names above plug into the same thesis from different angles: switchgear, cooling and fuel.

Lithium shows the other side, where demand forecasts can get cut 40% in a single bank note.

You want to be positioned in the companies that bend, pour, enclose and power the next 250 GW of data centers, and that are already showing it in their order books.

HIDDEN METAL LINKS

Washington now treats America's reliance on foreign metal suppliers as a national security problem. Much of that supply is processed in China.

Who holds the supply?

High-heat alloys for rockets. Rare earth magnets for satellites. Lithium, nickel and graphite for batteries. Motors and magnets for robots.

Get the report and ticker

One small company holds that supply, still around $5 a share, and it is no household name.

*This ad is sent on behalf of Guardian Financial Publishing LLC, doing business as Stable Financial Publishing, 1013 Centre Road Suite 403-D, Wilmington, DE 19805. Nothing here is investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and it is not a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves substantial risk, including loss of principal; small-cap and low-priced stocks carry particular risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Stable Financial Publishing, its owners, employees and contributors may hold positions in securities mentioned and may trade them at any time. References to Elon Musk and SpaceX are for informational purposes only; Stable Financial Publishing is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Elon Musk or SpaceX. Privacy: https://guardian.pub/privacy-policy/ · Terms: https://guardian.pub/terms-of-service/

— Noah Zelvis, Resource Brief