The United States relies on critical minerals as basic inputs for nearly all modern technology, including essential energy storage and defense systems. However, of the federal government’s list of 54 critical minerals, the U.S. is fully import-dependent for 12 and relies on foreign sources for more than half of 29 others – creating acute supply chain vulnerabilities for national defense, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor production, and more.  

The NSF Critical Mineral Accelerator Engine in Alaska, led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is leveraging advances in technology and the state’s unmatched mineral reserves to reduce this dependence, particularly on China-dominated supply chains.  

Alaska possesses nearly all of the critical minerals central to U.S. competitiveness and national security. By integrating cost-reducing extraction and recovery technologies, AI-enabled exploration systems, and novel biomining approaches and creating new workforce pipelines, the NSF Critical Mineral Accelerator Engine is building a statewide ecosystem poised to rapidly increase domestic production and deployment – strengthening U.S. supply chains and Alaska’s economy as global demand accelerates.