News & Trends

Without mines no AI

29.04.2026 2 min

Geologist and resource investor Fabian Erismann explains why the competition between the United States and China may ultimately be decided by the power grid.

When you talk about raw materials, you often put energy at the center. Why?
Raw materials are tangible. You can see the mine, you know where the resources come from, and dependencies are easy to debate. Energy, by contrast, often feels invisible – yet it underpins everything else. Without electricity, there are no batteries, refineries shut down, and data centers go dark. So when we talk about industrial strength, the first question should be: Where does the energy come from, and is there enough of it? Without that foundation, any resource strategy rests on shaky ground.

What does that mean for the competition between the US and China?
China started early in thinking about industry and energy as one system. The country expanded its power grids, increased generation capacity, and built battery factories at the same time. In the United States, new data centers and technology hubs are emerging rapidly, but much of the power grid is aging. If electricity can’t keep up, the bottleneck won’t be the mine – it will be the grid. The country that can deliver energy reliably and at competitive costs will give its industry a decisive edge.

Fabian Erismann

Fabian Erismann is a geologist and partner at Earth Resource Investments, a boutique fund focused on global commodity markets.

Looking ahead ten years, will access to raw materials or access to energy matter more?

You can’t do without raw materials – but without energy, nothing works at all. No country will find every critical resource within its own borders, so dependencies are inevitable; they simply shift over time. What really matters is who creates more value from those materials. Countries that only export raw resources give up influence. Those that process them domestically build factories, develop expertise, and create jobs. And that requires reliable energy.