Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed a landmark two-year agreement with Rio Tinto’s Nuton® Technology venture that will make Amazon the first commercial user of copper produced by the innovative Rio Tinto bioleaching process at the Johnson Camp mine in Arizona. Under the deal, AWS will incorporate this copper into components for its U.S. data centers, highlighting a strategic shift toward securing critical minerals with lower environmental impact.
The copper supplied through this partnership is produced with Rio Tinto’s Nuton bioleaching technology, an industrial-scale method that uses naturally occurring microorganisms to extract copper from primary sulphide ores. This process yields 99.99 % pure copper cathode at the mine site, bypassing traditional concentrators and smelters and significantly reducing the mine-to-market supply chain’s carbon and water footprint. Rio Tinto and AWS will also collaborate on advanced data analytics and cloud-based support to optimize the bioleaching process in real time.
The Johnson Camp mine, operated by Gunnison Copper and using Nuton technology, represents one of the first new U.S. copper production sources in over a decade, producing copper that meets rising demand driven by AI and cloud infrastructure growth. Data centers require large volumes of copper for wiring, busbars, transformers, circuit boards and cooling systems, making this partnership strategically important as companies expand AI computing capacity.
Amazon’s move underscores its commitment to sustainable sourcing and supply chain resilience as it scales its cloud and artificial intelligence operations. The agreement also reflects broader industry efforts to secure domestic critical materials amid global copper demand surges and concerns about supply shortages.