Prysmian and Rio Tinto supply cables for Amazon data center: What ELYSIS technology means

Italian cable manufacturer Prysmian (MIB: PRY) announced a partnership with mining company Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) on September 18, 2026, to supply electrical cables made from low-carbon aluminum for an Amazon data center near Columbus, Ohio. According to the companies, the collaboration marks the first known application of aluminum from the ELYSIS process in a data center.

ELYSIS technology: Aluminum without CO2 emissions

The cables use aluminum produced with ELYSIS technology. In this process featuring inert anodes—chemically stable, non-reactive electrodes—the smelting process produces no direct greenhouse gas emissions. Pure oxygen is released as a byproduct instead of carbon dioxide. The company explained that the project demonstrates that the carbon footprint of data centers can be reduced at the raw material level.

ELYSIS technology differs from the conventional Hall-Héroult process, which has been the standard in aluminum production for over 130 years and uses carbon anodes that release CO2 during the process.

Manufacturing in Missouri, deployment in Ohio

Prysmian will manufacture the electrical cables at its production facility in Sedalia, Missouri. Assembly is planned for the Amazon data center near Columbus, Ohio. The partnership between Prysmian and Rio Tinto was already announced in March 2026; the current announcement specifies the collaboration in a commercial application.

Assessment for investors: Sustainable supply chains in focus

Joern Tinnemeyer, Vice President of Data Center Engineering at Amazon Web Services (AWS), linked the initiative to Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2040. The cooperation is part of a series of measures by large technology companies to reduce the environmental impact of their infrastructure.

For Prysmian, the partnership opens access to a growing market segment where sustainability criteria increasingly carry weight in procurement decisions. Rio Tinto is positioning itself with ELYSIS technology as a supplier of raw materials with a reduced carbon footprint—a differentiating factor in a commodities market traditionally shaped heavily by price competition.

Market environment: Data centers as growth drivers

The global expansion of cloud services, artificial intelligence, and data processing is driving new data center construction. At the same time, operators are under pressure to reduce high energy consumption and associated emissions. Solutions that reduce emissions already during the manufacturing of building materials are gaining relevance in this context.

The collaboration between Prysmian, Rio Tinto, and Amazon shows how sustainable production processes can be integrated across the value chain from raw material through semi-finished product to end application. Whether the ELYSIS process will prove economically viable in the long term compared to conventional methods depends on scaling effects, energy costs, and regulatory conditions.