Seattle, Jan 16, 2026, 06:36 PST — Premarket
- Amazon shares gained roughly 0.7% in premarket action following AWS’s agreement on a copper supply deal linked to U.S. data centers.
- Rio Tinto announced that AWS will be the inaugural customer for copper produced using its Nuton bioleaching process in Arizona.
- Investors are focused on Amazon’s early-February earnings, seeking hints on cloud demand and future spending.
Amazon.com shares edged up 0.7% to $238.18 in premarket Friday, building on a small gain from earlier this week as investors reacted to a new supply-chain initiative from its cloud division.
The spark came from an agreement positioning Amazon Web Services to purchase copper mined in Arizona through a newer extraction method. It’s a minor headline, yet it cuts right into the debate over the costs of expanding AI-era data centers.
Copper serves as essential plumbing at these sites — powering cabling, busbars, and heat sinks — and demand is shifting from a distant concern to a pressing issue procurement teams are scrambling to secure. For equity investors, the key question is whether locking in supplies now will ease future spending or simply highlight how strained the buildout has become.
Rio Tinto announced on Thursday that AWS will be the first to use copper made with Nuton Technology’s “bioleaching” technique, which extracts metal using natural microorganisms. The two-year agreement means AWS will incorporate this initial Nuton copper into its U.S. data centre components and offer cloud data and analytics support to refine the process. Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst described it as “a fundamentally different approach to copper production.” Rio Tinto Copper CEO Katie Jackson said the partnership could “deliver cleaner, lower-carbon materials at scale.” Rio Tinto
U.S. equity futures edged up, led by gains in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, offering some relief to megacaps after a rocky start to the year.
Amazon is stepping up its efforts on policy and regulation. This week, AWS announced its European Sovereign Cloud is now generally available, beginning with a Germany region built to comply with the European Union’s strict data residency and governance rules.
Analysts remain divided on the near-term outlook: will enterprise AI demand drive growth, or will AI upend Amazon’s retail model? Raymond James’ Josh Beck trimmed his price target to $260 from $275 but kept an outperform rating. He flagged risks from “agentic commerce” — AI agents that shop and checkout on behalf of consumers, which could divert traffic from traditional storefronts. MarketWatch
There’s a straightforward risk here: this copper deal might not deliver much financially. Volumes and specifics haven’t been shared, and input costs could still shift unfavorably if commodity prices keep swinging. Copper has surged over 40% in the past year, recently crossing $13,000 per metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Miners and buyers alike are flagging potential supply crunches ahead, driven by rising demand from data centers and electrification.
Traders seem set to view Friday’s move as just another fragment of the AI-infrastructure story, not a big re-rating on its own. The real trigger will be Amazon’s quarterly report, slated for Feb. 5, according to Nasdaq and Yahoo Finance. Investors will zero in on any updates around cloud demand, capex, and margins.
