Antimony: The metal fuelling global competition

Over the next decade the competition for predominance between the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China, will undisputably centre on technological supremacy. The development and control of technologies dictating the future of crucial industries such as semiconductors, advanced AI, data centres and quantum computing. It can be argued that China has a strategic advantage as it controls the supply chains of most of the world’s critical minerals that underpin these future-defining technologies.

One of these critical materials is Antimony, a lustrous silvery-grey metalloid which has quietly emerged as one of the intensely contested resources because it is widely used in the defense industry. Antimony is used to harden lead alloys in the production of ammunition, as a component in flame retardants and in semiconductors for guidance systems. It is also vital for modern military technology, including night vision goggles, infrared sensors and in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

China dominates the global antimony supply chain, holding a dominant position in the market. It controls nearly half of the world's mine production and the vast majority of its processing capacity. This dominance presents a significant strategic vulnerability for the defence industries of countries like the United States and its allies, especially since antimony has no known substitutes for many critical military applications. The impact is particularly acute for the United States as it sources around 65% of its antimony requirements from China.

Since 15 September 2024 China has implemented some form of export controls on Antimony, together with a few other rare earth elements. This situation alerted the US and its allies to the dangers of their overreliance on China as a source of critical resources that are vital to safeguard their national security and interests. As a result, the US is now scrambling to work on different options to diversify the procurement sources for its critical minerals requirements.