3 articles
China's controls on rare earth expertise target the operators and engineers required to bring Western separation and magnet plants to commercial yield. Tacit process knowledge is the binding constraint on replication.
Applied Materials’ $5 billion and Lam Research’s ₹10,000 crore India commitments establish a second manufacturing geography for global equipment OEMs. Engineering, qualification, and proprietary materials capture most of the economic rent, while dependence on Chinese-processed inputs remains the primary constraint on supply-chain resilience.
China controls 91% of rare earth refining and 98% of heavy rare earth separation. Western mining is expanding, but separation, magnet manufacturing, and process expertise remain the binding constraints.