Material Insights · Understanding the Material World

Computers and electronics and Gold

Electronics uses only about 5% of the gold bought each year, but chips, contacts and boards rely on it for corrosion-free connections, and discarded phone boards hold hundreds of grams of gold per tonne, making e-waste a second source of the metal.

Computers and electronics (industry) and Gold (commodity): 4 relationships.

How they are linked

1. Industry input

Physical flow · Strong · Gold to computers and electronics

Gold conducts well and does not corrode, so it is used for bonding wire inside chips, plated contacts and connectors; the site rates it 5 of 5 on criticality for chip and memory suppliers.

  • 5 of 5 criticality for chip and memory suppliers
  • about 270 t gold used in electronics, 2025
  • about 5,000 t total world gold demand, 2025

Electronics took about 270 tonnes in 2025, flat on 2024, within technology demand of about 323 tonnes, against total demand of just over 5,000 tonnes. The AI boom supported electronics volumes and memory chips edged up late in the year, while consumer electronics was volatile and LED gold use slipped as the sector moves to newer mini and micro LEDs. For chipmakers the metal is a small share of cost but has no quick drop-in replacement in many uses.

Enterprise types that depend on it:

  • Chip and memory suppliers: bonding (criticality 5 of 5)
  • E-waste collectors and recyclers: recovered from boards (criticality 2 of 5)

Sources: Material Insights; World Gold Council; World Gold Council

2. Thrifting at high prices

Substitution · Medium · A high gold price pushes electronics makers to use less gold

Because gold is priced by investors and central banks, not by electronics demand, a price surge raises component costs, and makers respond by plating thinner layers and testing other metals.

  • US$3,431/oz average gold price, 2025
  • 44% rise in the average gold price, 2025 on 2024

With the 2025 average up 44% to a record, circuit-board makers were reported to speed up thrifting, and World Gold Council fieldwork pointed to more research into cutting and substituting gold across all technology uses. Electronics volumes still held flat, so thrifting slows growth in gold use rather than reversing it within a year.

Sources: World Gold Council; World Gold Council

3. E-waste recovery

Physical flow · Rising · Discarded electronics return gold to the market

Phone and computer boards carry gold at concentrations of hundreds of grams per tonne, so collecting and refining e-waste recovers it, but most discarded devices never reach a formal recycler.

  • 142 to 700 g/t gold in mobile phone circuit boards, study of 2018
  • US$15 billion value of gold in world e-waste, 2022
  • 22.3% of world e-waste formally collected and recycled, 2022

The world produced about 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, heading for about 82 million tonnes by 2030, and its gold was worth about US$15 billion. Only about a fifth was documented as formally collected and recycled, so most of that gold was not recovered through documented channels. Laboratory leaching can recover most of the gold in phone boards, with a cyanide solution extracting 88% in one study.

Sources: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul repository; UNITAR

4. India e-waste EPR

Policy · High in India · India's producer responsibility rules route device makers' waste to registered recyclers

Under the E-Waste (Management) Rules 2022, producers of listed electronics must meet annual recycling targets by buying EPR certificates from registered recyclers, which pushes gold-bearing boards into the formal sector.

  • about 1.75 Mt e-waste generated in India, 2023-24
  • 43% share of India's e-waste processed, 2023-24

India's estimated e-waste rose about 73% from 2019-20 to 2023-24, and the processed share rose from 22% to 43%, leaving about 990,000 tonnes unprocessed. The rules took effect on 1 April 2023; the estimates rely on producers' sales data and the list of covered products widened to 106 items from 2023-24, so the series is not fully comparable over time.

Sources: Down To Earth (Rajya Sabha data)

For investors

Key learnings

  1. Electronics is a price taker in gold: at about 5% of demand it cannot move the price, so a rally passes straight into component costs and margins.
  2. High prices accelerate thrifting, which caps future gold use per device even as AI hardware supports volumes.
  3. Formal e-waste recycling is a growth area because only about 22% of world e-waste was properly recycled in 2022 while boards carry hundreds of grams of gold per tonne.

What to track

  • Gold used in electronics (WGC technology demand): A fall while device output grows signals faster thrifting or substitution (Quarterly · World Gold Council Gold Demand Trends)
  • LBMA gold price: Sustained rises lift input costs for chip packagers and board makers and raise the value of recovered gold (Daily · LBMA)
  • EPR certificate generation by registered e-waste recyclers in India: Rising volumes show formal recyclers capturing more gold-bearing scrap (Annual · CPCB EPR portal)

For policymakers

Key learnings

  1. India's e-waste is growing fast, about 73% in five years to 2023-24, so recovery capacity has to grow with device sales.
  2. More than half of India's e-waste was still unprocessed in 2023-24, which means gold and copper are lost or recovered informally with health and pollution costs.
  3. Recovering gold and copper from boards gives India's electronics push a domestic material loop, but only if collection shifts from informal handlers to registered recyclers.

What to track

  • Share of e-waste processed against generated: Progress under EPR targets and the size of the informal gap (Annual · CPCB, Parliament replies)
  • Registered e-waste recycling capacity by state: Whether capacity keeps pace with the widened 106-item scope (Annual · CPCB)
  • Global e-waste collection rate: Benchmark for India's progress and for world secondary gold supply (Every two to four years · UNITAR and ITU Global E-waste Monitor)

India

India generated about 1.75 million tonnes of e-waste in 2023-24 and processed 43% of it; its E-Waste (Management) Rules 2022 set producer recycling targets from April 2023, while its growing electronics assembly relies on imported chips that already contain the gold.

Sources

  1. Computers and electronics: materials, Material Insights (2026)
  2. Gold Demand Trends Full Year 2025: Technology, World Gold Council (2026)
  3. Gold Demand Trends Full Year 2025: executive summary, World Gold Council (2026)
  4. Gold recovery from printed circuit boards of mobile phones scraps using a leaching solution alternative to cyanide (Kasper and Veit, Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul repository (2018)
  5. Global E-waste Monitor 2024: electronic waste rising five times faster than documented e-waste recycling, UNITAR (2024)
  6. India's e-waste surges by 73% in 5 years, Down To Earth (Rajya Sabha data) (2024)