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Key Points
- The ruthenium price has quietly surged, nearly doubling over the past year to around $800 USD per ounce, significantly outperforming platinum’s 40% annual gain.
- Ruthenium is an incredibly rare element, extracted as a by-product of platinum mining, with global production at a mere 30 tons last year.
- The primary driver for ruthenium’s soaring demand is its critical role in the production of high-capacity hard drives, essential for the booming artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
- A film of ruthenium less than one nanometer thick is used in modern HDDs to dramatically increase data recording capacity.
- The ruthenium market is predicted to face a shortage next year as demand from cloud computing, projected to drive a 16% increase in global hard drive sales, is set to outstrip supply.
The meteoric rise of the ruthenium price is one of the most interesting, under-the-radar stories in the commodities market right now, especially for anyone tracking the AI revolution.
Let’s unpack it.
Platinum Had a Great Year. Ruthenium Had a Better One.
You’ve probably heard about platinum’s impressive run in the first half of this year.
It’s often seen as the “gold alternative,” and it clocked an impressive 40% annual gain.
Solid returns, no doubt.
But there’s a lesser-known precious metal that has more than doubled platinum’s performance.
Meet ruthenium, a silvery-gray member of the platinum group metals.
According to new data from metal refiner Johnson Matthey Plc (Zhuangxin Wanfeng 庄信万丰), ruthenium’s price has nearly doubled over the past year.
It’s now sitting at around $800 USD per ounce.
That puts it neck-and-neck with its 2021 peak and just shy of its all-time high of $870 USD, a record set 18 years ago.
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So, What’s the Connection to Platinum?
Interestingly, ruthenium and platinum are closely linked.
Ruthenium is incredibly scarce in the Earth’s crust.
It doesn’t just show up on its own; it’s typically found and extracted as a by-product of platinum mining.
To give you a sense of its rarity, global production of ruthenium was a mere 30 tons last year.
The AI Gold Rush: Why Ruthenium is the New Star Metal
So why is ruthenium’s price surging so much faster than platinum’s?
The answer comes down to one thing: its highly specialized use case in the AI era.
According to SFA (Oxford), a leading critical minerals consultancy, the current explosion in artificial intelligence is the primary driver.
Specifically, it’s ruthenium’s critical role in the production of high-capacity hard drives that’s fueling the demand.
The Tech Behind the Trend: Data Density and Durability
As a platinum group metal, ruthenium is prized for some killer properties:
- Exceptional Hardness: It’s tough and durable.
- Corrosion Resistance: It doesn’t break down easily.
- High-Temperature Stability: It can handle the heat inside electronics.
- Broad Applications: It’s also used in energy storage and chemical manufacturing.
But its superpower is in data storage.
In modern hard disk drives (HDDs), a film of ruthenium less than one nanometer thick is used to dramatically increase the drive’s recording capacity.
It allows manufacturers to pack way more data into the same physical space.
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More AI Means More Data, Which Means More Ruthenium
Sandeep Kaler, an analyst at SFA (Oxford), breaks it down simply:
“With the proliferation of artificial intelligence and the growing demand for data storage, we need a low-cost, efficient technology that can store vast amounts of data.”
“Technologies relying on other metal elements are still very expensive, so unless a cheaper alternative is found, the demand for ruthenium will continue to rise.”
The numbers back this up.
Data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that the growth of cloud computing will drive a 16% increase in global hard drive sales this year alone.
More hard drives mean more demand for ruthenium.
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What’s Next? A Looming Supply Shortage
Here’s where it gets really interesting for investors and tech manufacturers.
Kaler predicts that the ruthenium market is on track to face a shortage next year.
Demand is set to outstrip supply.
When a critical, rare component with no cheap alternative becomes even scarcer, prices tend to react accordingly.
The story of the ruthenium price is a fascinating, real-time case study of how bleeding-edge tech trends can create massive ripple effects in the oldest markets on Earth.
- Forecasted Ruthenium Market Status: Shortage next year
- Primary Demand Driver: Growth of AI and cloud computing
- Impact on Hard Drive Sales: Cloud computing to drive 16% increase in global hard drive sales (forecast by IDC)
- Alternative Technologies: Currently expensive, reinforcing demand for ruthenium
References
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