The Quartz Corp
Inner-layer crucible quartz comes in practice from a very small number of deposits, and every Czochralski puller on earth needs it.
High-purity quartz sand · NO US
Participants
Everyone in the chain from ore to buyer, graded by how hard they are to replace.
A directory of everyone in a supply chain is a phone book. What makes this research is the last column: for each participant, whether it is a chokepoint, merely concentrated, or genuinely competitive.
Grading participants “competitive” is not filler. It is the thing that makes “chokepoint” mean anything — a map on which every node is critical is a map nobody has actually read. Several well-known names in this list are here precisely because they are not constraints.
On the demand side the grade reads the other way round: when a handful of firms account for most of the world’s orders, that concentration is a scarcity fact about the chain too, pointing upstream instead of down.
- Participants mapped
- 101
- Graded a chokepoint
- 28
- Graded competitive
- 10
Across 10 layers and 28 jurisdictions.
One or very few qualified suppliers, and no substitute that arrives in time.
In the chain, and not a constraint on it. Saying so is the point.
How the grades are assigned
The mandate’s own screen — concentration, substitutability, lead time, demand inelasticity — applied one participant at a time.
- Chokepoint
- One or very few qualified suppliers, and no substitute on a horizon that matters. Removing it stops things.
- Concentrated
- A handful of credible suppliers. Substitution is possible but slow, costly, or needs re-qualification.
- Competitive
- Many credible suppliers. In the chain, but not a constraint on it — and saying so is what makes the other two grades mean something.
Where the chain actually binds
28 of 101 participants are graded a hard constraint. These are the ones worth knowing by name.
Sibelco
The other holder of the same rare deposit quality. Two names deep is the whole of the upstream for this input.
High-purity quartz sand · BE US
Wacker Chemie
Solar-grade polysilicon has many producers; electronic-grade has very few, and the gap is orders of magnitude of impurity.
Electronic-grade polysilicon · DE US
Hemlock Semiconductor
One of a handful of qualified suppliers of the first material in the entire chain.
Electronic-grade polysilicon · US
Tokuyama
Same short list, different geography — which is most of why it matters.
Electronic-grade polysilicon · JP MY
China Northern Rare Earth
Separation, not mining, is where the rare-earth chain actually narrows, and it narrows here.
Rare-earth separation · CN
Shenghe Resources
Processes feedstock from mines all over the world, including ones marketed as diversification.
Rare-earth separation and trading · CN
Chinalco
Gallium is an alumina by-product, so supply cannot answer price — and it is export-controlled.
Gallium from alumina refining · CN
Shin-Etsu Handotai
Five firms supply essentially all prime 300 mm capacity, and qualification at a leading-edge fab takes years.
300 mm prime silicon wafers · JP
SUMCO
The other half of a duopoly at the top of the wafer market.
300 mm prime silicon wafers · JP
Momentive Technologies
Turning rare sand into a crucible that survives a pull is knowledge held in very few places.
Fused quartz crucibles · US
Shin-Etsu Quartz
Same step, same shortness of the list.
Fused quartz components · JP
Less Common Metals
A tiny specialist standing between Western separated oxide and a finished magnet.
Rare-earth alloys and strip · GB
ASML
One company on earth builds EUV, the queue runs to years, and no second source is in progress.
EUV and DUV lithography systems · NL
Carl Zeiss SMT
A chokepoint inside a chokepoint: the mirrors are polished to a tolerance one supplier has ever achieved.
EUV projection optics · DE
Trumpf
The drive laser is as single-sourced as the scanner it sits inside.
EUV plasma-source lasers · DE
JSR
Resist chemistry is qualified per process per fab; substituting one is a programme, not a purchase.
Photoresists · JP
Tokyo Ohka Kogyo
The same Japanese concentration that made resist an export-control talking point.
Photoresists and process chemicals · JP
Shin-Etsu Chemical
Present at several narrow points of this chain simultaneously.
Photoresists, masks and silicones · JP
TSMC
A handful of fabs can run the newest node at volume, and one of them runs most of it.
Leading-edge foundry · TW
TSMC Advanced Packaging
Accelerator output is gated by packaging slots, not wafer starts, and they are allocated years ahead.
CoWoS-class packaging · TW
SK hynix
HBM stacking yield is knowledge that does not transfer when a competitor buys the same equipment.
High-bandwidth memory · KR
NVIDIA
The constraint is not only silicon: the software estate around it is what makes substitution slow even where alternatives exist.
Accelerators and interconnect · US
Hitachi Energy
Large power transformers run to multi-year lead times, and a datacentre cannot be energised without one.
Transformers, HVDC, grid equipment · CH JP
Siemens Energy
Order books for both halves of the energisation problem are effectively spoken for.
Grid equipment and turbines · DE
GE Vernova
The fastest route to firm power at scale, sold out well into the future.
Gas turbines and grid equipment · US
Harmonic Drive Systems
Precision drives set what a robot joint can do, and the tolerances are decades of accumulated practice.
Strain-wave reduction gears · JP
Nabtesco
The other half of a duopoly that quietly gates humanoid and industrial robotics alike.
Cycloidal reduction gears · JP
The chain, layer by layer
Ordered upstream to downstream. The number is how many participants are mapped.
Extraction
Ore, gas fields and the by-product streams that most of these elements come from.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Quartz Corp | High-purity quartz sand | NO US | Chokepoint |
| Sibelco | High-purity quartz sand | BE US | Chokepoint |
| Sibanye-Stillwater | PGM mining incl. ruthenium | ZA | Concentrated |
| Impala Platinum | PGM mining | ZA | Concentrated |
| Nornickel | Nickel and PGM mining | RU | Concentrated |
| MP Materials | Rare-earth ore | US | Concentrated |
| Lynas Rare Earths | Rare-earth mining and separation | AU MY | Concentrated |
| Yunnan Tin | Tin mining and smelting | CN | Concentrated |
| Minsur | Tin mining and smelting | PE | Competitive |
| PT Timah | Tin mining and smelting | ID | Competitive |
| QatarEnergy | Helium from LNG | QA | Concentrated |
| ExxonMobil | Helium from natural gas | US | Concentrated |
Refining & separation
Purification to the grade an application needs. For most of this chain the chokepoint moved here long ago, downstream of the mine and out of view.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wacker Chemie | Electronic-grade polysilicon | DE US | Chokepoint |
| Hemlock Semiconductor | Electronic-grade polysilicon | US | Chokepoint |
| Tokuyama | Electronic-grade polysilicon | JP MY | Chokepoint |
| OCI | Polysilicon | KR MY | Concentrated |
| China Northern Rare Earth | Rare-earth separation | CN | Chokepoint |
| Shenghe Resources | Rare-earth separation and trading | CN | Chokepoint |
| Chinalco | Gallium from alumina refining | CN | Chokepoint |
| Heraeus | Precious-metal refining | DE | Concentrated |
| Johnson Matthey | PGM refining | GB | Concentrated |
| Umicore | PGM refining and recycling | BE | Concentrated |
| Linde | Industrial and electronic gases | GB US DE | Concentrated |
| Air Liquide | Industrial and electronic gases | FR | Concentrated |
| Air Products | Industrial gases and helium | US | Concentrated |
| Iceblick | Neon and rare gases | UA | Concentrated |
| 5N Plus | High-purity specialty metals | CA DE | Concentrated |
Conversion
Into the form that ships: wafer, crucible, tape, coil, target, magnet.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shin-Etsu Handotai | 300 mm prime silicon wafers | JP | Chokepoint |
| SUMCO | 300 mm prime silicon wafers | JP | Chokepoint |
| GlobalWafers | Silicon wafers | TW | Concentrated |
| Siltronic | Silicon wafers | DE | Concentrated |
| SK Siltron | Silicon and SiC wafers | KR | Concentrated |
| Momentive Technologies | Fused quartz crucibles | US | Chokepoint |
| Shin-Etsu Quartz | Fused quartz components | JP | Chokepoint |
| Ferrotec | Quartz and fab consumables | JP CN | Concentrated |
| Element Six | CVD synthetic diamond | GB IE | Concentrated |
| Coherent | SiC substrates, diamond, photonics | US | Concentrated |
| Wolfspeed | Silicon carbide substrates | US | Concentrated |
| Resonac | SiC epitaxy and fab materials | JP | Concentrated |
| Fujikura | REBCO superconducting tape | JP | Concentrated |
| Faraday Factory Japan | REBCO superconducting tape | JP | Concentrated |
| Neo Performance Materials | Rare-earth magnets and materials | CA EE | Concentrated |
| Less Common Metals | Rare-earth alloys and strip | GB | Chokepoint |
| Nippon Steel | Grain-oriented electrical steel | JP | Concentrated |
| POSCO | Grain-oriented electrical steel | KR | Concentrated |
| Indium Corporation | High-purity metals and solders | US | Concentrated |
Equipment & consumables
The tools that print, etch, deposit and measure — and the chemistry they consume doing it.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASML | EUV and DUV lithography systems | NL | Chokepoint |
| Carl Zeiss SMT | EUV projection optics | DE | Chokepoint |
| Trumpf | EUV plasma-source lasers | DE | Chokepoint |
| Applied Materials | Deposition, etch and process tools | US | Concentrated |
| Lam Research | Etch and deposition | US | Concentrated |
| Tokyo Electron | Coaters, developers, etch | JP | Concentrated |
| KLA | Process control and metrology | US | Concentrated |
| ASM International | Atomic layer deposition | NL | Concentrated |
| JSR | Photoresists | JP | Chokepoint |
| Tokyo Ohka Kogyo | Photoresists and process chemicals | JP | Chokepoint |
| Shin-Etsu Chemical | Photoresists, masks and silicones | JP | Chokepoint |
| Nikon | Lithography systems | JP | Competitive |
| Canon | Lithography and nanoimprint | JP | Competitive |
Fabrication
The fabs. Where a design becomes a die, at a node and a yield.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSMC | Leading-edge foundry | TW | Chokepoint |
| Samsung Foundry | Leading-edge foundry and memory | KR | Concentrated |
| Intel Foundry | Leading-edge foundry | US IE IL | Concentrated |
| SMIC | Foundry | CN | Concentrated |
| GlobalFoundries | Mature and specialty nodes | US DE SG | Competitive |
| UMC | Mature-node foundry | TW | Competitive |
Packaging & memory
Where dies become an accelerator. Increasingly the step that gates output rather than wafer starts.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSMC Advanced Packaging | CoWoS-class packaging | TW | Chokepoint |
| ASE Technology | Assembly and test | TW | Concentrated |
| Amkor | Assembly and test | US KR | Concentrated |
| SK hynix | High-bandwidth memory | KR | Chokepoint |
| Micron | High-bandwidth memory | US JP SG | Concentrated |
| Samsung Memory | High-bandwidth memory | KR | Concentrated |
Systems & silicon
Accelerators, interconnect and the machines they are built into.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | Accelerators and interconnect | US | Chokepoint |
| AMD | Accelerators and CPUs | US | Concentrated |
| Broadcom | Custom accelerators and networking silicon | US | Concentrated |
| Marvell | Custom silicon, optics and interconnect | US | Concentrated |
| Vertiv | Datacentre power and thermal systems | US | Concentrated |
| Arista Networks | Datacentre networking | US | Competitive |
| Supermicro | Server systems integration | US TW | Competitive |
Energy & grid
Transformers, turbines, cable and switchgear. The layer that decides whether announced compute is ever energised.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hitachi Energy | Transformers, HVDC, grid equipment | CH JP | Chokepoint |
| Siemens Energy | Grid equipment and turbines | DE | Chokepoint |
| GE Vernova | Gas turbines and grid equipment | US | Chokepoint |
| Prysmian | High-voltage cable | IT | Concentrated |
| NKT | High-voltage cable | DK | Concentrated |
| Schneider Electric | Electrical distribution and datacentre power | FR | Concentrated |
| ABB | Electrification and drives | CH | Concentrated |
| Mitsubishi Electric | Transformers and power electronics | JP | Concentrated |
Actuation & robotics
Drives, motors, encoders and the robots they add up to.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harmonic Drive Systems | Strain-wave reduction gears | JP | Chokepoint |
| Nabtesco | Cycloidal reduction gears | JP | Chokepoint |
| FANUC | Industrial robots and CNC | JP | Concentrated |
| Yaskawa | Servo motors and robots | JP | Concentrated |
| ABB Robotics | Industrial robots | CH SE | Concentrated |
| Renishaw | Encoders and metrology | GB | Concentrated |
| KUKA | Industrial robots | DE CN | Competitive |
Deployment & demand
Who is actually buying. Concentrated demand is a scarcity fact about a chain in its own right.
| Participant | Role in the chain | Where | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | Hyperscale compute buyer | US | Concentrated |
| Amazon Web Services | Hyperscale compute buyer and custom silicon | US | Concentrated |
| Hyperscale compute buyer and custom silicon | US | Concentrated | |
| Meta | Hyperscale compute buyer | US | Concentrated |
| OpenAI | Frontier model developer | US | Concentrated |
| Anthropic | Frontier model developer | US | Concentrated |
| xAI | Frontier model developer | US | Concentrated |
| CoreWeave | Specialist compute provider | US | Competitive |