New Delhi [India], October 29 (ANI): Ajai Chowdhry, Co-Founder of HCL and Chairman of the National Quantum Mission, has warned that China’s dominance over rare earth elements poses a serious strategic threat to global manufacturing, including India’s ambitions in electric vehicles (EVs) and advanced technologies.
Speaking to ANI, Chowdhry explained how China has systematically gained control over critical minerals over the past decade and a half. “Rare earths are absolutely essential for many products. EVs, for example, and batteries—all these products use rare earths. What China did in the last 10 or 15 years is start sourcing from all over the world and buying up the mines. So today, 90 percent of the world’s rare earths are controlled by them, and they can be weaponized. If they stop supplying rare earths, a lot of our products cannot be developed, whether they’re in India, America, or Europe,” Chowdhry said.
He noted that recent Chinese export restrictions on rare earths have already drawn strong reactions from the United States. “Now, because they decided to impose serious export restrictions on rare earths, America has put in a 100 percent extra duty. Now, what should we do?” he asked.
Chowdhry acknowledged the environmental and operational challenges of rare earth mining, describing it as “a very dirty job.” “Rare earth mining creates a lot of material that is harmful to health. Mining is a very tough job. But in China, it doesn’t matter—nobody gets to know, and they can manage that. We can’t. The second issue is that we never thought about it earlier as a country, so we are pretty late in this,” he added.
As an immediate solution to India’s rare earth dependency, Chowdhry proposed extracting critical minerals from the country’s growing e-waste, claiming that 30–40 percent of domestic demand could be met through this “non-mined” route rather than waiting five to seven years for new mining projects.
He said the Centre and NITI Aayog have already prepared a comprehensive rare earth plan, but a faster alternative lies in recycling electronic scrap. “Now, a rare earth plan has been put together by the government. NITI Aayog has worked on it. All that is going on. But it will take us five to seven years to get there. There’s a faster way—much of the e-waste we were talking about earlier contains rare earths. We should take that e-waste and convert it into the rare earth materials we need. Tons of that can be created,” Chowdhry said.
“I’ve given a paper, working with a researcher, to NITI Aayog on non-mined rare earth. There are tons of it available if we just pick up e-waste. We should use that right away, rather than wait for our mines to come up,” he added.
While acknowledging limitations, Chowdhry said the approach could significantly narrow the supply gap. “I can’t say it’s going to replace everything, but 30 to 40 percent of our requirement can be met just from e-waste,” he stated.
Shifting to the broader geopolitical context, Chowdhry warned that critical technologies are increasingly being used as leverage in global trade. “It’s the weaponization of everything you can think of—software, hardware, rare earths, EVs, batteries—all of these are being weaponized now. So as we conclude, I just want to speak to you about nurturing talent,” he remarked. (ANI)
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