A U.S. government-created artificial intelligence program that aims to predict the supply and price of critical minerals has been transferred to the control of a non-profit organization that is helping miners and manufacturers strike supply deals…Launched in late 2023 by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Open Price Exploration for National Security AI metals program is an attempt to counter China's sweeping control of the critical minerals sector, as Reuters reported last year…Now, more than 30 mining companies, manufacturers and investors - including auto giant Volkswagen - have joined the Critical Minerals Forum non-profit and will be its first users, according to Rob Strayer, a former U.S. diplomat and the organization's president…Armed with the AI model, the CMF aims to help manufacturers curb their reliance on China by signing more metal supply deals with Western mines…The goal is for the AI model to calculate what a metal should cost when labor, processing and other costs are factored in - and Chinese market manipulation is factored out - and thus give buyer and seller confidence in a deal's economics…Yet it is aimed less at heavily traded metals - such as aluminum - and toward lightly traded metals or metals that see heavy overproduction from some in an attempt to sway market pricing…For example, the CMF model could help manufacturers forecast available nickel supplies in 2028 if the U.S. were to impose a 100% tariff on that metal from Indonesia, the top global producer. That data that could help a manufacturer determine whether to invest in a U.S. nickel mine or agree to buy its future production, a step that would help obtain financing for a mine's construction…In such a scenario, the nickel buyer would use the AI model's data to negotiate a long-term deal for guaranteed supply, regardless of whether Chinese miners boost production and drive down market prices, as they have done in recent years…The CMF's aim with the AI model does assume that a buyer would be comfortable paying more than the market price for a metal if supply were guaranteed…The CMF's entrance into the complex metals markets comes as Beijing restricts critical minerals exports, the very kind of market interference that the CMF officials said underscores the need to build more U.S. mines and processing facilities to power the energy transition…Prices on the London Metal Exchange and other futures exchanges for nickel, cobalt and some other battery metals have been dominated in recent years by overproduction from Chinese miners operating at a loss in Indonesia and Congo to boost market share…As Western miners begin to demand green premiums for their metals, those new agreements increasingly require the very market intelligence the CMF model aims to provide.

Ukraine and the U.S. on Wednesday signed a deal heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump that will give the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals deals and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction…The accord establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia's three-year-old war in Ukraine...U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko were shown signing the agreement in a photo posted on X by the Treasury, which said the deal "clearly signals the Trump Administration's commitment to a free, sovereign, prosperous Ukraine."…The U.S. has been Ukraine's single largest military donor since Russia's 2022 invasion with aid of more than 64 billion euros ($72 billion), according to the Kiel Institute in Germany…Ukraine is rich in natural resources including rare earth metals which are used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and military applications, among others. Global rare-earth mining is currently dominated by China, which is locked in a trade war with the U.S. after Trump's sharp tariff increases…Ukraine also has large reserves of iron, uranium and natural gas…Svyrydenko said Ukraine has no debt obligations to the United States under the agreement, a key point in the lengthy negotiations between the two countries…The deal also, she said, complied with Ukraine's constitution and Ukraine's campaign to join the European Union, key elements in Ukraine's negotiating position.

At Peking University, a group of Chinese scientists may have just turned the computing industry up on its head…With a slender sheet of lab-grown bismuth and an architecture unlike anything inside today’s silicon chips, they’ve built what they call the world’s fastest and most efficient transistor. Not only does it outperform the best processors made by Intel and TSMC, but it also uses less energy doing so. And most important of all, there’s no trace of silicon involved…Since the early 1990s, transistors — the tiny switches that drive everything from smartphones to supercomputers — have largely depended on silicon and a design known as the Fin Field-Effect Transistor, or FinFET. These resemble tiny skyscrapers, standing vertically on chips to allow better control of current flow at nanoscale dimensions…But FinFETs are running out of space — literally. As chips shrink to just a few nanometers, engineers are hitting hard physical limits…So, Peng’s team decided not to shrink the old design any further. They scrapped it altogether...Their new transistor uses a gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) structure. Instead of wrapping the gate around three sides of the transistor’s channel like FinFETs do, a GAAFET encircles it on all four..The bismuth advantage…Rather than silicon, the Peking University team built their transistor using bismuth oxyselenide (Bi₂O₂Se) for the channel, and bismuth selenite oxide (Bi₂SeO₅) as the gate material…These materials are part of a class known as two-dimensional semiconductors — atomically thin sheets with exceptional electrical properties. Bismuth oxyselenide, in particular, offers something silicon struggles with at ultra-small sizes: speed…Electrons move through it faster, even when packed into tiny spaces. It also has a higher dielectric constant, meaning it can hold and control electric charge more efficiently. That makes for faster switching, reduced energy loss, and — very importantly — a lower chance of overheating…All of this adds up to stunning results. According to the team, their transistor can run 40% faster than today’s most advanced 3-nanometer silicon chips — and it does so while using 10% less energy…Due to ongoing U.S.-led export restrictions, Chinese firms have been blocked from buying the latest silicon chip-making equipment. The most advanced lithography machines, those that can manufacture 3-nanometer chips, are made by a handful of companies in the West…By creating a transistor that doesn’t rely on silicon — and which can be fabricated using existing tools in China — Peng’s team may have found a way around those sanctions….“While this path is born out of necessity due to current sanctions, it also forces researchers to find solutions from fresh perspectives,” Peng said…Can these transistors be manufactured at scale? Will they survive the heat and stress of real-world computing? And how long will it take for the technology to reach consumer devices?...But turning laboratory breakthroughs into commercial chips typically takes years — sometimes decades. It’s one thing to design a single transistor. It’s quite another to integrate billions of them onto a reliable, manufacturable chip.