Recommended reading
Chip War Chris Miller
The Technological Republic Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska
The New Material Realism If the 20th century was the age of oil, the 21st will be the age of atoms—and whoever controls them controls everything. We must abandon the fantasy of frictionless growth and rediscover the laws of matter. That means rebuilding domestic refining capacity, friend-shoring supply chains, investing in AI-driven exploration, treating critical minerals as national security assets and investing in mining innovation the same way we invested in tech.
The bottom line: A technological civilisation runs on its minerals. The West is marching into a technological war with no supply chain to feed the front. We talk about the AI arms race, but the real contest is for the atomic foundation beneath it. Whoever controls the minerals will control the machines—and whoever controls the machines will shape the century.
Bits Need Atoms - or the Empire Falls
Supremacy Parmy Olson
The cloud is made of copper. Intelligence runs on indium. Supremacy is smelted from ore. Without lithium, the EV revolution stops. Without gallium and germanium, AI chips don’t exist. Without neodymium, drones don’t fly. Without copper, the digital economy goes dark. This is not metaphorical—it’s a material reality check. If we ignore it, our technological future will crumble on foundations we forgot to secure.
It’s time we started digging like our future depends on it. Because it does.
Unit X Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff
Volume 47 No.4 DECEMBER 2025
63
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