Industrial Minerals

Silicon

Refined from quartz into metallurgical, solar and semiconductor grades of extraordinary purity.

SiStrategic score 80EU Critical Raw MaterialUS Critical Mineral (metallurgical)

Price

$2,100 / USD/t metallurgical

Price change

1.1%

Producing assets

Technologies

Context

Why it matters

Every chip and nearly every solar panel begins as silicon. It is the substrate of the digital economy.

Profile

Applications: Semiconductor wafers, Solar polysilicon, Aluminium alloys, Silicones, Battery anode additives
Supply risk: Moderate. Quartz is abundant, but ultra-high-purity quartz and polysilicon capacity are concentrated.
Geopolitics: China dominates metallurgical silicon and polysilicon; a handful of deposits supply high-purity quartz crucibles.
Substitutes: None as a semiconductor substrate at scale; SiC and GaN complement rather than replace.
Recycling: Limited from wafer manufacturing scrap.
Sustainability: Smelting is highly electricity intensive; carbon intensity depends entirely on the power source.
Forecast: Demand scales with AI chip and solar build-out.
Key countries: 3 tracked producer and processing roles

Methodology

Version v0.1

Demand Outlook: 82 (weight 1.2) — Projected demand growth relative to the broader mineral economy over the next decade.
Supply Risk: 83 (weight 1.2) — Likelihood of supply falling short of demand, accounting for project pipeline and lead times.
Geographic Concentration: 87 (weight 1) — How concentrated mining and processing are across countries and companies.
Geopolitical Risk: 82 (weight 1) — Exposure to export controls, sanctions and jurisdictional instability.
Technology Importance: 81 (weight 1.1) — How central the mineral is to strategically important technologies.
Strategic Importance: 85 (weight 1) — Recognition in national critical mineral lists and defence supply chains.
Substitutability: 79 (weight 0.8) — How readily the mineral can be replaced without material performance loss. Higher is harder to substitute.
Recycling Potential: 76 (weight 0.7) — Ability of secondary supply to relieve primary demand. Higher means less relief available.

Assets

The largest concentration of polysilicon production capacity in the world.

Research

Gallium has no dedicated mines. That is precisely the problem.

AI is often described as weightless. Its infrastructure weighs a great deal.

Materials

Potassium salts that supply one of the three primary nutrients in agricultural fertiliser.