Tungsten prices have surged by more than 550%, exposing a hidden vulnerability at the heart of the AI economy. As China tightens control over critical minerals, the race for artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a race for the materials beneath modern technology.
Europe’s new technology strategy is not about decoupling from the United States. It is about becoming indispensable within the infrastructures, supply chains and innovation ecosystems that underpin the digital economy, reshaping the future of transatlantic technological cooperation and resilience.
Markets still focus on companies, but the next decade will be shaped by systems. As AI, energy and supply chains converge, value shifts toward infrastructure layers that economies cannot function without, redefining how investors should think about risk and opportunity.
The global economy is no longer driven by capital allocation, but by compute capacity. Beneath every market, model and machine lies a new constraint: semiconductors. This series explores how physics, energy and chip architecture are redefining power.
