What’s going on here?

After playing hard to get for months, China will start exporting the rare earth metals that America’s been lusting over – but this isn’t a long-term, forever thing.

What does this mean?

China is the world’s main supplier of rare earths: certain metals used in electric vehicles, smartphones, wind turbines, and even fighter jets. Now, rare earths aren’t actually rare from a how-many-exist-in-the-Earth’s-crust standpoint, but they are hard to mine and process – hence the name.

For America, rare earths have become more – er – rare lately, with China slowing exports to a small trickle. But after another round of negotiations, the troubled twosome has reached a new agreement. China will speed up rare earth exports again – but only for six months. And, in exchange, the US will temporarily relax its restrictions on things China wants, including jet engine parts and materials for plastics.

Why should I care?

For markets: This isn’t an all-American problem.

China holding on to rare earths affects companies the world over. A shortage of the metals can hold up innovation, production lines, and, ultimately, profit.

🚗 We’ve already seen that play out this year: Ford and Suzuki have both had to power down factories, while Elon Musk has claimed that the delays hampered his robotics business.

😬 Don’t expect this deal to settle companies’ nerves, either. China’s six-month time limit makes it nearly impossible to plan ahead. It’s just more risky to do things like build factories or sign big-buck contracts when essential materials could be out of stock later in the year.

The bigger picture: This isn’t China’s first rodeo.

China has weaponized its rare earth dominance before, issuing strict export quotas during a 2010 maritime dispute with Japan. That restriction sent global prices higher, and forced producers in various countries to figure out plan Bs. And in fairness, the auto industry did turn those lemons into lemonade. Renault built a motor entirely without rare earths, while Nissan slashed its use of one of them (dysprosium) by nearly half. But that lemonade had an expiration date: today, you’ll find rare earths in 97% of EVs.

What’s going on here?

Nvidia and Samsung just invested in US robotics startup Skild AI, both determined to be a part – literally – of the next generation of intelligent machines.

What does this mean?

Skild builds foundation models for robotics: the – take a deep breath here, technophobes – flexible “brains” that let machines adapt to new tasks in real time. Those smarts have been attracting some of the industry’s biggest names. Japan’s SoftBank started heading up a $100 million funding round in January, valuing Skild at $4.5 billion. And now, Nvidia and Samsung have contributed $25 million and $10 million respectively – in exchange for a stake in the startup, of course.

Why should I care?

Zooming in: Dystopia, sponsored by Nvidia.

The idea of all-singing, all-dancing, all-world-dominating robots isn’t exactly new to Nvidia.

🤖 The firm already has its chips in some of the most advanced humanoid prototypes, like Figure AI’s robots.

🤝 Add those partnerships to a coupling with Skild, and the chipmaker’s hardware (and name) will be even more prevalent.

🔂 That’s strategic: Nvidia took the same tack in the AI space, focusing on building out hardware in the first instance – often before its exact application had been figured out.

The bigger picture: Robots to the left, robots to the right.

Robots are popping up everywhere now, from Amazon’s warehouse bots to Samsung’s Ballie and Tesla’s Optimus. Besides building the next generation of soccer athletes, tech firms want to birth always-on workers. See, aging populations and shrinking workforces around the world are threatening to leave many critical jobs vacant. So there’s plenty of money to be made in filling the gaps – and the company that builds the smartest, most adaptable robots could call dibs.