Silver Just Broke $70 — And the World Is Running Out
Silver has crossed $70 per ounce for the first time in history and this move is not being driven by speculation, hype, or retail frenzy.
In just twelve months, silver prices have surged more than 140%, making it the best-performing major asset of 2025. The rally has shattered silver’s 1980 nominal record of $49.45 and pushed the market into territory with no historical resistance levels.
But this time is different.
Silver is no longer behaving like a traditional precious metal. It is being repriced as critical infrastructure , essential to artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and national security. And the world is discovering, very quickly, that there may not be enough of it.
From $29 to $72: A Once-in-a-Generation Repricing
At the start of 2025, silver traded quietly between $28 and $30 per ounce. Today, it sits around $72.15, depending on the exchange.
That represents gains of 120% to 145% year-to-date, a move not seen since the early 1980s.
While gold has also entered what many analysts describe as a new super-cycle after rising roughly 64% this year, silver’s rally reflects a very different set of structural pressures.
Silver isn’t just outperforming gold. It’s outperforming everything.
- Silver: +142%
- Gold: ~+64%
- S&P 500: ~+14%
This is not a typical commodity rally. It is a structural reset.
Why This Matters Now
Silver’s breakout is happening at a moment when global supply chains are already under strain. Artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and military systems are all expanding simultaneously and all depend on the same finite inputs.
Silver sits at the intersection of all three.
Unlike oil, copper, or lithium, silver has no easy substitutes. Its unique electrical and thermal properties make it irreplaceable in many advanced applications. As demand accelerates, the market is discovering that supply cannot respond.
That imbalance is the core of this story.
The Three Forces Driving Silver’s Historic Breakout
1. AI Is Physical — And It Runs on Silver
Artificial intelligence may feel digital, but it is deeply physical.
Every AI model depends on massive data centers packed with high-performance processors, ultra-fast connectors, and dense electrical systems , a shift driven by silver’s growing industrial demand across the global economy. Silver is the most conductive metal on Earth, and there is no practical alternative for many of these components.
In 2025:
- Silver use in AI-related electronics surged roughly 25% year-over-year
- New data center power capacity is exploding, with total global capacity now 50 times larger than in 2000
- Each new gigawatt of capacity requires tons of silver embedded throughout its infrastructure
From printed circuit boards to high-speed connectors capable of handling extreme heat and data throughput, silver is foundational to the AI buildout.
This demand is not optional. AI systems simply do not function without it.
2. Solar Energy’s Growing Appetite
Solar power has become one of the largest and fastest-growing consumers of silver.
Today, nearly 30% of all industrial silver demand comes from photovoltaic manufacturing. And despite years of “thrifting” efforts to reduce silver per panel, total consumption continues to rise.
The reason is scale.
The United States, China, and the European Union are building solar capacity at a pace that overwhelms efficiency gains. Compounding the issue, the industry’s shift to newer TOPCon solar cells now the 2025 standard has increased silver usage per cell by roughly 50% compared to panels from just a few years ago.
Solar demand is policy-driven, long-term, and accelerating. There is no credible scenario in which it meaningfully declines.
3. A Supply Deficit That Keeps Getting Worse
While demand surges, supply is failing to keep up and has been for years.
2025 marks the fifth consecutive year in which global silver consumption exceeds mine production.
- 2025 projected deficit: ~149 million ounces
- 2024 deficit: ~117 million ounces
- Cumulative deficit since 2021: ~800–820 million ounces
That cumulative shortfall is nearly equivalent to an entire year of global silver mine output.
To bridge the gap, markets have been draining above-ground inventories the so-called “emergency stash” stored in vaults in London, New York, and other financial hubs. Those inventories are now at multi-decade lows.
When inventories vanish, prices don’t rise gradually. They jump.
Silver Is Now a Critical Mineral And That Changes Everything
One of the most important developments of 2025 went largely unnoticed outside policy circles.
On November 7, 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey officially added silver to the U.S. Critical Minerals List.
This is a fundamental reclassification.
Silver is no longer viewed primarily as a precious metal used for jewelry or investment. It is now treated as a national security asset, alongside lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements.
This shift opens the door to:
- Faster mine permitting
- Government subsidies
- Strategic stockpiling
- Defense Production Act funding
In plain terms, the U.S. government is signaling that silver shortages are a strategic risk not just a market inconvenience.
The Supply Trap No One Can Escape
Even at $70+, silver supply cannot respond quickly. The reason lies in how silver is mined.
Approximately 70–75% of global silver production is a by-product of mining other metals such as copper, lead, and zinc. This creates a hard constraint on supply growth.
Silver miners cannot simply increase output because prices are higher. To produce more silver, companies must first develop new copper or lead mines , a process that typically takes 10 to 15 years from discovery to production.
This makes silver supply inelastic at precisely the moment demand is becoming explosive.
The result is a structural ceiling on production.
The $50 Floor and the New Reality
As silver pushes deeper into uncharted territory, analysts are reassessing what “normal” pricing even means.
Several major research firms now describe $50 per ounce as a long-term floor, not a temporary peak. Their reasoning is simple: even at that level, demand from AI, solar, and defense exceeds what the market can sustainably supply.
Silver is no longer priced like a cyclical commodity. It is being priced like infrastructure.
What Markets Are Watching Next
The next phase of silver’s story will be shaped by three key variables:
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Inventory levels — how quickly remaining vault stocks are depleted
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Policy action — especially following silver’s new critical mineral status
-
Technology demand — whether AI and renewable deployment accelerate further in 2026
With inventories thin and supply constrained, even modest demand surprises could have outsized price effects.
A Metal Rewritten by the Modern Economy
This is not a story about silver “catching up” to gold.
It is a story about silver being rediscovered not as a relic of monetary history, but as a foundation of the modern technological economy.
At $70 and beyond, silver is sending a clear message to global markets:
The world is running out and it knows it.
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