Beyond oil: Why Trump and tech billionaires are racing to secure Greenland’s ‘vast riches’ for future of AI

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram With the United States taking control of Venezuela’s vast oil fields, tech investors in the country like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and others are turning their attention to Greenland’s rare earth metals. Last week, Trump said the US needs Greenland , Denmark’s autonomous territory, “from the standpoint of national security” and “economic security”. According to CNBC , Critical Metals Corp, a company with an ongoing mining project in development on the Arctic island, received questions from tech investors about how the US’s acquisition of Greenland would affect its assets and development strategy. Company CEO Tony Safe also told the publication that its shares have risen by over 116% since the start of the year. The project, which is still in early stages of development, aims to extract the heavy rare earth elements (HREE), which can be used in advanced technologies ranging from EVs to AI data centre infrastructure. Another mining company, Amaroq, also told the publication that it was in talks with the US government about potential investment in Greenland. Amaroq CEO Eldur Olafsson had said in November last year that the rare earth minerals like germanium and gallium, which are important for making AI chips, were present on a project site it owns in Greenland. In a statement to CNBC, Critical Metal Corp CEO said, “ heavy rare earths, which include Yttrium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium, and Gallium, are the minerals that generate the most interest. These are the materials that are essential for defence technologies, robotics, semiconductors and aerospace applications. We can’t fly rockets into space, build nuclear submarines or next-generation fighter jets without these materials.” In 2019, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates reportedly invested in KoBold Metals, a mining company that looks for valuable rare earth minerals used in electronic devices. Three years down, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also invested in the same company. While some tech billionaires are looking to extract rare earth minerals and metal from Greenland, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, a company that offers data analysis platforms to the government have invested in a startup called Praxis that wants to build an advanced “freedom city” on the island. Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

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