China leads in AI-critical minerals, but a company says deep-sea nodules could supply them for centuries

(SeaPRwire) –   The next frontier in the global AI competition could lie a couple of miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Minerals including copper and cobalt are seeing sky-high demand driven by the $700 billion global buildout of AI infrastructure. For example, Microsoft’s 80-megawatt facility in Chicago required 2,100 tons of copper alone. Nickel, cobalt, and lithium are required for the batteries that power data centers, while rare earth elements are critical to the magnets in server fans and hard drives that keep AI systems operating continuously.

The core challenge is that most of these minerals are mined or processed by China, the U.S.’s main geopolitical rival. According to the International Energy Agency, China is the leading refiner for 19 out of 20 of the world’s most important strategic minerals, holding an average market share of 70%.

Without new sources of these minerals, the U.S. faces unstable dependence on China for the raw materials that underpin its technological and economic future. If left unaddressed, this vulnerability could give Beijing enormous leverage over American industry for decades to come.

The Trump administration has recognized this resource challenge. In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Commerce and other relevant agencies to advance the exploration and development of deep-sea mineral resources.

Several U.S. companies are now planning to extract polymetallic nodules (PMNs), mineral-rich rock formations that lie loose on the abyssal plain of the deep ocean floor. 

One of these firms is American Ocean Minerals, which is in the final stages of closing a $1 billion merger with Odyssey Marine Exploration, and has tapped former Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese to lead the company.  

The firm recently secured a license to conduct research in the exclusive economic zone surrounding the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. Albanese claims the EEZ holds a massive reserve of PMNs.

“This could be hundreds of years of mineral supply,” Albanese told .

The high-stakes bet on potato-sized mineral formations 

PMNs are potato-sized rounded formations that form over millions of years, as layers of metal oxides slowly accumulate around an existing object on the ocean floor, such as a shark tooth or fragment of shell.

Composed primarily of manganese and iron, they also contain commercially valuable metals including nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images

The Cook Islands EEZ spans more than 770,000 square miles, nearly five times the size of the state of California. 

“And you can imagine that entire area is sprinkled with nodules,” Albanese said.

The Cook Islands Seabed Mineral Authority, which oversees responsible management of the country’s seabed mineral resources, says the region holds 6.7 billion metric tons of PMNs. That includes an estimated 20 million metric tons of cobalt, roughly 100 times the annual output from the Democratic Republic of Congo—the world’s top cobalt producer, where China controls the majority of production.

Environmental, governance, and scientific concerns

While American Ocean Minerals has been granted exploration licenses in the Cook Islands EEZ, the timeline for launching actual commercial mining is still quite far off. In fact, there is currently no commercial deep-sea mining taking place anywhere in the world; these minerals are all harvested from land-based sources today. 

The International Seabed Authority, which regulates mineral-related activities in the world’s oceans, has not yet approved any company for commercial extraction, and a key March meeting on the topic ended in a stalemate. 

A growing coalition of 40 countries now backs a moratorium on deep-sea mining, citing environmental, governance, and scientific concerns. Other nations, including several South Pacific island nations, have called for an outright ban on the practice.

The deep ocean floor is highly biodiverse. The Ocean Exploration Trust, a non-profit ocean discovery organization, led an expedition to the seabed around the Cook Islands last year and found “so many creatures we know absolutely nothing about.” Deep-sea mining would very likely disrupt deep-sea ecosystems.

A separate report from the American Museum of Natural History estimated that the impact of deep-sea mining equipment would reduce animal abundance by 37% in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a Pacific region that is also believed to be rich in PMNs. 

Still, supporters argue deep-sea mining may be less harmful than land-based mining, which causes massive habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, and toxic contamination of water sources. Additionally, many land-based mining operations, such as those in the DRC, rely on forced labor.

Demand for critical minerals is only expected to rise. The International Energy Agency estimates that demand for nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements could more than double by 2040. For Albanese, the lack of diversified mineral sources will remain a major geopolitical flashpoint if new, independent sources are not developed.

“I see the merits of continued engagement with China,” he said, “but also see the risks of being overly dependent on the Chinese industry for any part of critical supply chains.”