US turns to DARPA’s Smash program to solve rare earth processing bottlenecks instead of opening new mines

• US targets processing bottleneck rather than searching for new rare earth deposits
• Parallel mining concept seeks profitability despite higher national and environmental labor costs
• Distributed processing model attempts to reduce reliance on single vulnerable mining sites

China is responsible for much of the world’s rare earth refining capacity, giving it control of supply chains in the event of trade disputes. This advantage was achieved by managing the expensive and complicated processing step on a large scale, often with lower costs and fewer environmental restrictions.

The United States has spent years trying to rebuild its rare earth supply chain, but mining alone has not solved the core problem. Transformation remains the sticking point, and as Data center dynamics reports, this is where the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is placing a high-risk bet.