Ruthenium’s long-term role in hard-disk drives (HDDs) may be evolving, but surging demand from AI infrastructure is expected to keep the market supported as data centre operators race to expand storage capacity.
According to the latest Precious Appraisal report from Heraeus Precious Metals, HDD demand has remained robust amid global data centre buildouts, with cloud computing and artificial intelligence driving unprecedented storage requirements.
While solid-state drives continue to gain market share, HDDs remain the lowest-cost solution for hyperscale storage at around $US25 million per exabyte (EB), compared with approximately $US500 million per EB for SSDs.
The strength of that demand helped lift ruthenium prices to $US1895 per ounce earlier this year before easing to $US1520 per ounce. The report said that demand from data centre expansion looks set to stay strong despite ongoing technological changes in the storage sector.
Ruthenium became a critical component of HDD manufacturing following the adoption of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology in 2005. By using a ruthenium spacer between magnetic layers, PMR enabled higher storage densities and drove a significant increase in demand for the platinum group metal.
The industry’s next technological leap, heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), uses an iron-platinum alloy and requires little to no ruthenium.
However, Heraeus said the transition will be gradual. Seagate expects roughly half of its exabytes delivered in 2026 to utilise HAMR technology, while rival Western Digital continues to focus on enhancing PMR-based products and is not expected to commercialise HAMR until next year.
The result is a multi-year transition period in which AI-driven storage growth is likely to offset declining ruthenium intensity per drive. With global ruthenium demand sitting at around one million ounces annually and electronics accounting for roughly one-third of consumption, the metal remains leveraged to one of the fastest-growing themes in technology.
As Heraeus said in its 2026 outlook, robust data center growth and the AI-driven expansion of hard disk technology are expected to continue supporting ruthenium demand, helping keep the market tight even as storage technologies evolve.
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