Azuria's Tavi Costa Warns AI Build Phase Fuels Inflation Amid Historic Mining Supply Crisis

According to Azuria Capital CEO Tavi Costa in a recent interview with Kitco News, the global infrastructure buildout to support artificial intelligence is creating an immediate inflation shock, contrary to market consensus that AI will usher in a deflationary era. The physical demand for data centers, electrical grid upgrades, and mining capacity is colliding with a mining sector operating at historic supply deficits, particularly in zinc, where primary supply remains stalled at 2012 levels.

Costa pushed back on market expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes, arguing the U.S. Treasury market faces mounting debt-service pressures that will eventually force policy toward cuts rather than tightening. Meanwhile, central banks' shift away from Treasuries toward gold reserves is accelerating—the European Central Bank's latest data shows gold now represents 27% of global official reserves, surpassing U.S. Treasuries at 22%. Costa expects this reallocation to intensify as sovereigns prioritize hard assets amid inflation concerns.