The cooling economies in China and Europe has created a slowdown in demand for steel and copper which are two large components in building and expanding existing data centers. Steel as in any construction project is important and in recent years costs for the material had steadily been on the rise thus impacting the construction costs for data centers. Copper on the other hand is integral for wiring of communications and more used for wiring of electricity within data centers.
Electrical costs in most data center projects is close to 1/3 of the project budget and with copper pricing coming down could mean data center electrical installs to come down as well. Note that there is typically a lag between the market and the street price so keep an eye on this trend if you are timing your next project.
