Critical minerals ‘as important as the Manhattan Project’
The US Secretary of the Interior says deeper co-operation between Australia and the US on critical minerals will help ensure Washington doesn’t lose the AI ‘arms race’ with Beijing.
US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum says deeper co-operation between Australia and the US on critical minerals will help ensure Washington does not lose the AI “arms race” with Beijing, saying it was just as important as the Manhattan Project during World War II.
Mr Burgum, who was previously the chairman of Atlassian from 2012 to 2016 before he stepped down to successfully run for North Dakota Governor, sounded the alarm on the use of unfair trade practices and the stealing of intellectual property by Beijing.
He hoped the framework agreement signed between Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump would encourage other nations to “join in” the development of more reliable global supply chains for the supply of critical minerals and rare earths.
Speaking at BHP’s 140th anniversary lunch reception at the Australian Embassy in Washington, Mr Burgum explained how critical minerals were needed for defence technologies and AI while taking aim at the opponents of the mining industry, which he argued was central to future prosperity.
“The challenge is that we cannot lose the AI arms race with China,” he said.
“And we need two things to win that AI arms race. And one of those is we need to make sure that we have the power of power generation.
“It turns out you can’t make electricity today in any form if you don’t have minerals, including something as basic as copper,” he said.
Mr Burgum argued that the US was in a period of “energy addition” because “we need more electricity”.
“There’s never been a time in history where a kilowatt of electricity is worth more than it is today because a kilowatt of electricity can be converted into an intelligence. And we need critical minerals for the chips, the computers and the copper for the wiring to go into these intelligence factories,” he said.
“We need the critical minerals. It’s part of the race that we’re in. And winning the AI arms race is just as important as the Manhattan Project or any other project we’ve ever met.”
Fresh from inking his $US8.5bn ($13bn) critical minerals framework agreement with Donald Trump, Anthony Albanese told attendees at the lunch reception at Australia’s embassy in Washington that critical minerals and rare earths were vital to the next generation of defence technologies and advanced manufacturing as well as artificial intelligence and data centres.
“If we move now, if we mobilise our capital, invest in our skills base … then we can put the partnership between our two nations at the epicentre of this global transformation,” he said. “We can ensure that it’s our workers, our resources, our businesses and our investment that shape this new era.”
Mr Albanese said the agreement meant that both nations would be “identifying and directly investing in critical mineral projects to actively build the new supply chains needed to underpin our economic prosperity and security.”
He said that a pipeline of more than $8.5bn in critical minerals projects had already been identified and that US investment in Australian resources would “help save both our economies from future global shocks”.
Mr Burgum said that Australia and America had “been allies since the very beginning as the Prime Minister said, standing shoulder to shoulder”.
“And while there may not be a kinetic war going on right now, there certainly is a challenge that’s presented in the free world,” he said.
Mr Burgum said the importance of mining in underpinning prosperity as well as national security in both US and Australia was growing because of the value attached to critical minerals.
He was hopeful that the framework deal would encourage other “countries, other allies, other democracies to join in”.
He said other US partners would now feel more inclined to say “’hey, we think we need to be in a position in this world to be able to exchange, freely, the critical minerals and process those critical minerals that are central for defence (and) for technology”.
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