US Seeks New Alliances to Bolster AI Supply Chains
Plan Targets Chips and Critical Minerals to Reduce China Reliance
Key Takeaways:
- The U.S. will open talks on Dec. 12 with eight allied nations to forge agreements that strengthen supply chains for AI-related chips and critical minerals.
- Helberg said the effort aims to reduce reliance on China, which holds more than 90% of global rare earths refining capacity and recently tightened export controls.
- Officials plan to expand cooperation across energy, minerals and advanced manufacturing, with next steps focused on securing technology supply chains and bolstering U.S. industrial capacity.
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The U.S. will seek agreements with eight allied nations as part of a fresh effort to strengthen supply chains for the computer chips and critical minerals needed for AI technology, according to the top State Department official for economic affairs.
The initiative, which builds on efforts dating back to the first Trump administration, unfolds as the U.S. looks to cut dependence on China. It will begin with a meeting at the White House on Dec. 12 between the U.S. and counterparts from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the U.K., Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, Jacob Helberg, the undersecretary of state for economic affairs, said in an interview.
Helberg, a former adviser at Palantir Technologies Inc., said the summit will focus on reaching agreements across the areas of energy, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and transportation logistics.
Helberg said the countries were chosen for reasons that range from being home to some of the most important semiconductor companies to their critical minerals resources.
“It’s clear that right now in AI, it’s a two-horse race — it’s the U.S. and China,” Helberg said. “We want to have a positive, stable relationship with China, but we’re also ready to compete, and we want to make sure that our companies can continue building transformative technologies without being subject to coercive dependencies.”
Helberg. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Helberg’s initiative builds upon years of efforts on critical minerals supply chains by prior administrations largely aimed at helping reduce western dependence on China. The State Department in the first Trump administration launched the U.S. Energy Resource Governance Initiative with the aim of securing supply chains for critical minerals like lithium and cobalt. The Biden administration launched a Minerals Security Partnership that aimed to funnel foreign investment and western expertise to the mining sectors of developing nations.
Even so, the U.S. and other countries have been unable to break China’s stranglehold over rare earths supplies. China is home to more than 90% of global rare earths and permanent magnets refining capacity, compared with just 4% for second-place Malaysia, according to the, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization.
China announced tighter rare earths export controls in early October, only to agree to a one-year suspension after a meeting between Trump and President Xi Jinping.
Helberg said that unlike the Biden-era initiative, which had more than a dozen core countries, his focus is on producer countries. While the first Trump administration initiative focused on critical minerals, it came before the public release of AI platforms like ChatGPT, and the new plan focuses across all layers of the technology involved in AI, not just one, Helberg said.
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Helberg, 36, was previously senior adviser to Palantir CEO Alex Karp and also co-founded the Hill and Valley Forum, a gathering of tech leaders and U.S. lawmakers focused on national security challenges, especially those related to competition with China and the advancement of AI and other technologies.
In a cable on Dec. 2 to State Department employees seen by Bloomberg News, Helberg said that “after decades of failed globalization that neither supported domestic industry nor preserved critical supply chains, the United States must leverage our immense wealth and technological edge to secure our leadership” and bring benefits for the American people.
Besides securing technology supply chains, his office’s priorities include promoting trade and U.S. exports, particularly LNG and nuclear energy, to create jobs, Helberg said in the cable. It’s also working to rebuild the U.S. industrial economy via construction of new factories and manufacturing, and to use economic tools to help stabilize conflict zones and end wars.
Trump’s focus on ending wars can lower volatility in global commodity markets and remove a de facto tax cut for American consumers, Helberg said in the cable.
In the interview, he framed the work with trusted allies for his AI initiative as an “America centric” strategy, rather than one that’s reactive to China.
“Countries who are participating understand the transformative impact of AI, both for the size of a country’s economy, as well as the strengths of a country’s military,” he said. “They want to be a part of the AI boom.”
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