30 Packets

Quantum Computing Has a Supply Chain Problem… and China 10 Steps Ahead $NB $IONQ $INFQ $RGTI Why? There’s two reasons. Niobium and Nickel. Unlike traditional industries, quantum computing and related technologies depend on materials that are needed in tiny quantities but are absolutely irreplaceable. Niobium is the clearest example of a material that is economically modest in total market size but strategically outsized in its effect on quantum computing. Niobium is used to build the superconducting circuits — called Josephson junctions — that form the basic operating units of most leading quantum computers. There is no practical substitute that does not come with significant performance trade-offs. The United States imports 100% of its niobium supply, with Brazil producing roughly 90% of the world’s niobium from a single dominant mine, and Canada accounting for nearly all of the rest. That concentration alone is alarming, yet the ownership picture is worse. Chinese state-owned enterprises have quietly moved to acquire significant stakes in Brazilian niobium operations. In 2016, China Molybdenum Company purchased Anglo American’s niobium and phosphate operations in Brazil outright, becoming the world’s second-largest niobium producer. In late 2024, China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group acquired another Brazilian firm with niobium assets. The result is that China is steadily gaining strategic leverage over a material it does not mine on its own soil, a leverage it could exercise to constrain U.S. quantum technology development. Magnetic shielding for superconducting quantum computers presents a related problem. These machines must be isolated from stray magnetic fields, which requires wrapping them in specialized nickel-iron alloys — commercially known as mu-metal — with a nickel content of 77% to 80%. While the U.S. imports only 41% of its nickel supply, the study indicates that China controls at least 75% of Indonesia’s nickel refining capacity through a complex web of shell companies and ownership structures. Indonesia produces 66% of the world’s nickel. In practice, the supply chain for quantum magnetic shielding is nearly as exposed to Chinese leverage as the supply chain for niobium itself. Whoever controls the supply chains for quantum technologies could ultimately decide which nations get access to computing power capable of cracking encryption algorithms that today protect trillions of dollars in global financial transactions and government secrets.

When China rolled out new rare earth and critical mineral restrictions, $CRML hit $32, $USAR touched $44, $TMC ran to $12, and $MP cleared $100. That agreement? Just a one-year delay… no solution, no written agreement. And since then, nothing meaningful has changed. Now the U.S. has pushed the Trump–Xi meeting to May, while China is condemning the Iran war, calling for a ceasefire, and launching new trade probes into alleged U.S. unfair practices. The clock isn’t just ticking… it’s getting louder. And tensions aren’t easing… they’re building. We’re entering a new era.

Major Nickel Producer Huayou to Cut Indonesia Output as Sulfur Prices Surge. Let’s go! LONG NICKEL

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