Posted on 04/05/2024 6:11:10 AM PDT by Red Badger
Why it matters: Ultra-high-purity quartz is an essential component to semiconductor chips, and the only places in the world that can meet this need are two mines in a small North Carolina town. The mines' owner, Sibelco, is investing $700 million to expand capacity, but is that enough to keep up with AI-fueled chip demand?
Spruce Pine is a small town about two hours drive northwest of Charlotte, NC. You can get to the general area via a number of ways, depending on your point of origin, but for the last stretch of the trip, you need to travel down Fish Hatchery Rd. It's a two-lane rural highway, as depicted in Google Maps, set amid a pleasant scenic backdrop.
It's on this road that the modern economy rests, according to Wharton associate professor Ethan Mollick, who teaches innovation and entrepreneurship and also examines the effects of artificial intelligence on work and education. That's because the road runs to the two mines that are the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers.
This is not the first time these mines – owned by Sibelco, which mines, processes, and sells specialty industrial minerals – have been highlighted as integral not only to the global semiconductor industry but also to the solar photovoltaic markets.
Ed Conway raised the issue in his book, Material World, published last summer. Even before that, various media have covered the obscure mines. Mollick raised it again in a recent Tweet, emphasizing its strategic importance. If the mines were somehow to stop operating, "it would likely [be] a few years of major disruption while techniques to generate alternatives were scaled up. But the disruption would be pretty catastrophic."
It is an alarming prospect to contemplate, and it is fair to wonder whether Mollick is indulging in a bit of hyperbole. But there is no denying the fact that digital devices around the world contain a small piece of Spruce Pine's unique ultra-high-purity quartz. "It does boggle the mind a bit to consider that inside nearly every cell phone and computer chip you'll find quartz from Spruce Pine," Rolf Pippert, mine manager at Quartz Corp, a leading supplier of high-quality quartz, tells the BBC.
How did this unassuming North Carolina town gain such an outsized role in the global semiconductor supply chain? The answer is its unique mineral deposits, which formed 380 million years ago during the collision of Africa and North America. The intense heat and lack of water during their formation created quartz rock of unparalleled purity. These rocks are extracted from the ground and turned into quartz gravel, which is then processed into a fine sand. The silicon is separated from other minerals and then goes through a final milling. The final product is a powder that is shipped to refineries.
The inexorable march of artificial intelligence will continue to drive demand for chips and the materials in its supply chain. One question to ponder is whether Spruce Pine can keep up.
Sibelco, of course, has noted these trends as well and last year announced a $200 million investment to double high purity quartz capacity at its Spruce Pine facility, citing demand for the product, which is sold under the brand name IOTA. It will invest a further $500 million between 2024 and 2027.
“If anything, investors don’t understand what AI is and how profoundly it’s going to change things.”
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And the government will find a way to tax, regulate and control it. Profoundly.
Harumph Harumph! We’ll just have to put a stop to that!
How long before some Chinese company buys it???
As soon as they can get a front company to buy it like they are doing for U.S.Steel company.
I used to live right next to one of those mines. Their quartz was used to make the top telescopes lenses.
They will probably be sold to the CCP.
Toledo, the ‘Glass City’ was situated near the Sylvania Sandstone, a very high quality quartz formation that is actually in the form of loose sand for glass mfg. It runs throughout NW Ohio into SE MI. Part of it was excavated during construction of the Livingstone Channel at the entrance to Lake Erie, so we had a few beaches with brilliant white sand on the Detroit River where the material was dredged up.
As soon as the government has passed legislation to control and regulate it, AI will have evolved into something else.
“legislation moves like a snail”
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Not when they want to pass something in the dead of night.
A lot of legislation today is rushed through without members having read a word of it.
The government can move quite fast when it really wants to control something.
Those are my favorite beaches. I love having that sugar white sand between my toes.
In fact, some of the "scientists" developing AI admit that they no longer understand it. It's called the "black-box problem or effect."
In other words, humans write the initial code--just enough to get the deep learning process started. And then the AI begins to program itself as it starts consuming data and starts to "learn."
Biden will sell them to China before January 2025.
“Legislators don’t know what AI is.”
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They don’t pass legislation on the basis of knowledge. They pass it on the basis of politics.
Few actually bother to read it.
My point is that it is difficult to regulate something that can't be understood or identified. They can't hit a moving target.
“sugar white sand between my toes.”
Squeak Squeak Squeak
You beat me to it.
Have Gates or China bought up the land around it?
It’s the best!
Microsoft (MSFT): $3.176 trillionThey influence politicians directly and indirectly.Apple (AAPL): $2.652 trillion
NVIDIA (NVDA): $2.241 trillion
“My point is that it is difficult to regulate something that can’t be understood or identified. They can’t hit a moving target.”
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I get your point. But look what they did with Obamacare. I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to screw up anything.
Things like knowledge, practicality and workability are not their strong suit. Self-interest, political advantage and lust for power are what drives them.
Also what concerns me is the government’s increasing control over every aspect of our lives. When it comes to doing that, and spending money, they are second to none.
Let me guess - woke leftists want to shut them down....
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