Highlights

• Investors are pouring capital into AI and data centers while dramatically underfunding the mines and processing plants that supply the critical minerals these technologies require, creating a dangerous mismatch.
• Mining investment has grown only marginally since 2015 despite soaring AI valuations, and with 10-20 year development timelines, today's underinvestment raises material supply shortage risks in the 2030s.
• Rare earths represent the bottleneck within the bottleneck—essential for EVs, wind turbines, data centers, and defense—yet processing remains highly concentrated as capital favors software over supply chains.

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This Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) analysis reviews “The Paradox of Visibility,” a 2026 white paper from Resource Capital Funds (opens in a new tab), which argues that capital markets are misallocating investment—overfunding artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure while underfunding the critical minerals those systems physically require. We assess what is well supported, where assumptions deserve caution, and why this imbalance matters for rare earth and critical mineral investors.

Overview

A new analysis argues investors are pouring money into AI and data centers while ignoring the mines and processing plants that supply the metals making those technologies work. This mismatch could create shortages, higher prices, and geopolitical risk—especially for rare earth elements.

What the Paper Gets Right

The paper’s central insight is hard to dispute: the digital economy is not abstract—it is material-intensive. AI, hyperscale data centers, electrification, and advanced manufacturing all depend on copper, rare earth elements, lithium, nickel, graphite, aluminum, and silver. These inputs are dictated by physics, not preference.

Resource Capital Funds documents how electricity demand from AI workloads and data centers could more than double by the early 2030s, driving unavoidable demand for copper-heavy grids, rare-earth-based motors, and battery systems—while global mining investment remains well below levels consistent with that growth.

Where the Evidence Is Strongest

The most persuasive section compares financial valuation versus physical investment. While leading AI and compute platforms have seen rapid valuation growth since 2015, capital spending by the world’s largest miners has grown only marginally over the same period.

Given 10–20-year mine development timelines, today’s underinvestment materially raises the risk of supply tightness in the 2030s.

The paper is also clear-eyed about alternatives: recycling, substitution, and efficiency gains help—but cannot resolve near-term deficits within policy-relevant timelines.

Where Investors Should Apply Judgment

The analysis leans toward a structural scarcity narrative. Directionally, that risk is real—but outcomes will vary by commodity, jurisdiction, and project stage. Policy reform, permitting acceleration, or price shocks could change timelines. Investors should read the paper as a risk framework, not a deterministic forecast.

Why This Matters for Rare Earths

Rare earths are the bottleneck within the bottleneck. High-performance magnets underpin EVs, wind turbines, data-center cooling, and defense systems, yet processing and separation remain highly concentrated. If capital continues to favor software over supply, rare earth scarcity will assert itself through price, policy, and geopolitics.

REEx Takeaway: The digital economy may feel weightless—but it runs on metal. A capital that ignores that reality risks funding the future while starving its foundation.

Source: Resource Capital Funds, The Paradox of Visibility (2026)