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New York, NY – March 20, 2026 – Six companies are quietly rebuilding one of the most strategically important supply chains in the modern economy — the rare-earth pipeline that feeds the magnets inside missiles, fighter jets, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing. Companies mentioned in today’s commentary includes: Realloys Inc. (ALOY), USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR), Critical Metals Corp. (NASDAQ: CRML), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).
In Ohio, REalloys operates the only heavy rare-earth metallization capability in North America. In Oklahoma and West Texas, USA Rare Earth is building a fully domestic mine-to-magnet supply chain backed by $3.1 billion in combined government and private capital. In Greenland, Critical Metals Corp. is advancing one of the world’s largest undeveloped rare-earth deposits toward production.
And across industrial and technology sectors, Caterpillar, Apple, and Microsoft are proving the rare-earth revival is not just a mining story — it’s a manufacturing, engineering, and circular-economy story playing out across the entire American industrial base.
Beginning in 2027, U.S. procurement rules will prohibit defense systems from using magnets derived from Chinese rare-earth supply chains, forcing manufacturers to secure alternative sources across the entire value chain — from mining to metallization and magnet production.
“The establishment of heavy rare earth metal production on U.S. soil is a defining moment for North American industrial strategy,” said Stephen duMont, Chairman of REalloys. “The Ohio facility will create the metallization capability that bridges Canadian oxide production with U.S. magnet manufacturing — a critical link that’s never existed at scale in the West.”
Reports indicate Washington may have only months of certain rare-earth inventories available for defense manufacturing if supply disruptions deepen. For decades, the industrial processes that convert rare-earth oxides into metals and magnet materials consolidated overwhelmingly in China — a concentration that now represents one of the most sensitive vulnerabilities in the Western defense industrial base.
#1 REalloys (ALOY): Rebuilding the Precision Stage of the Supply Chain
If mining begins the rare-earth supply chain, and processing takes it further, metallization is where the materials finally become usable.
Rare-earth oxides — the powder produced after separation — cannot go directly into manufacturing. Before magnets can be produced, those oxides must be chemically reduced into pure metals and blended into precise alloys that serve as feedstock for permanent magnet production. That step requires tightly controlled reactions, high-temperature furnaces, and complex process control systems capable of maintaining stable yields and purity across multiple rare-earth elements.
For decades, that metallurgical conversion took place overwhelmingly inside China.
In Ohio, REalloys is rebuilding that capability. At its facility in Euclid, the company converts rare-earth oxides into finished metals and magnet alloys used by defense contractors and advanced manufacturers. It remains the only operating heavy rare-earth metallization capability in North America.
“Metallization is the least developed part of the value chain outside China,” said REalloys co-founder Tim Johnston. “It requires deep operating expertise and process control systems capable of managing complex variables in continuous production.”
Now the company is preparing to scale that capability significantly. REalloys has announced plans to construct what is expected to become the largest heavy rare-earth metallization platform outside China, capable of converting rare-earth oxides into roughly 600 tons per year of high-purity metals, including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
The expansion is being developed in partnership with the Saskatchewan Research Council, which is building North America’s first fully integrated commercial rare-earth processing facility in Saskatoon. Under the agreement, REalloys will fund upgrades to the facility and secure the majority of its production, including high-purity neodymium-praseodymium metals as well as dysprosium and terbium oxides used to manufacture high-temperature defense magnets.
REalloys is also developing a large-scale permanent magnet manufacturing facility designed to produce 3,000 tons of NdFeB magnets annually in its first phase and eventually scale to roughly 18,000 tons per year. At full capacity, that output could supply magnets for 1.5 to 2 million electric vehicles annually, along with thousands of wind turbines, robotics systems and large volumes of industrial motors.
The strategic importance of rebuilding this capability has attracted attention well beyond the industrial sector. The company recently appointed retired U.S. Army four-star general Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, to its board — underscoring the growing national-security significance of rebuilding the rare-earth pipeline inside North America.
#2 USA Rare Earth (USAR): Building America’s Mine-to-Magnet Chain
In Oklahoma and West Texas, USA Rare Earth is executing the most ambitious fully domestic rare-earth supply chain project in modern American history.
The company holds mining rights to the Round Top heavy rare-earth deposit near Sierra Blanca, Texas — one of the few undeveloped U.S. heavy rare-earth resources with the scale to matter at a national level, hosting neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, lithium, gallium, and 13 additional rare earths and critical minerals.
In January 2026, USAR secured a $1.6 billion government funding agreement alongside a concurrent $1.5 billion private capital raise — the largest financing round in the domestic rare-earth sector to date. The Department of Commerce took an equity stake, cementing USAR’s status as a nationally strategic asset.
That capital is funding two priorities: scaling the Stillwater, Oklahoma magnet facility — which has already produced its first commercial magnets and is targeting 1,200 metric tons annually, expanding to ~5,000 tons in later phases — and advancing Round Top toward mine construction, with the timeline accelerated by two years.
The September 2025 acquisition of Less Common Metals (LCM), a UK rare-earth alloy specialist, added the metallurgical expertise needed to complete the mine-to-magnet chain — one of the most China-dependent stages of Western supply. Early offtake agreements for drone technology magnets and pipeline inspection systems signal that defense and industrial customers are already engaging.
#3 Critical Metals Corp. (CRML): The Greenland Deposit Bridging East and West
While most Western rare-earth efforts focus on reopening dormant mines, Critical Metals Corp. sits on something rarer: a genuinely world-scale undeveloped heavy rare-earth deposit outside Chinese territory.
CRML’s flagship Tanbreez project in southern Greenland has returned 2025 drilling results showing a weighted average TREO+Y grade of 0.44% with a 24.1% heavy rare-earth component — a figure that matters because dysprosium and terbium are the most strategically sensitive materials in the magnet supply chain and the hardest to source outside China. Environmental approvals were secured in late 2025 and pilot plant construction has commenced.
In January 2026, CRML executed a term sheet for a $1.5 billion 50/50 joint venture with a Saudi industrial partner to build downstream rare-earth processing capacity, with a 25% Tanbreez offtake. The company has also received $120 million in non-dilutive U.S. EXIM Bank funding. First ore production is targeted for late 2028, with concentrate exports to follow.
#4 Caterpillar (CAT): Powering the Battery Belt from the Ground Up
Caterpillar doesn’t mine rare earths. But without its equipment, rare-earth mining — and the lithium, graphite, and copper extraction that supports the entire battery supply chain — simply doesn’t happen at scale.
With 2025 revenues of $67.6 billion, Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment — the backbone of every major critical minerals extraction operation from lithium brine fields in the American Southwest to rare-earth and graphite mines in Canada and Australia.
Its influence extends directly into the “Battery Belt” — the emerging corridor of lithium, graphite, and battery production stretching from the American Southeast through the Midwest. Through its investment in battery technology company Lithos Energy and the successful demonstration of its first battery-electric 793 large mining truck, Caterpillar is actively testing next-generation power systems with lithium and graphite developers — helping to define the electrified mine of the future.
CAT unveiled its next era of industrial AI and autonomy at CES 2026, positioning itself at the intersection of critical minerals, reliable power, and digital infrastructure. The company projects the mining equipment industry will grow 39% by 2035, with sector capex rising 50% before 2030 — a timeline that aligns directly with the ramp-up of domestic rare-earth extraction driven by defense policy. Caterpillar ended 2025 with $10 billion in enterprise cash and an A+ credit rating.
#5 Apple (AAPL): Building the Circular Economy for Rare Earths
Apple is not mining rare earths — but few organizations have done more to prove that a domestic rare-earth circular economy is technically and commercially viable.
At its Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, Apple’s Daisy robot disassembles up to 1.2 million iPhones per year with surgical precision — not by shredding them, but by separating individual components at a quality that makes rare-earth recovery economically viable for the first time in consumer electronics. Daisy freezes each battery at -80°C before separating it in roughly 11 seconds. Apple’s Dave robot then recovers rare-earth magnets and tungsten from Taptic Engines, while Taz separates magnets from audio modules — recovering materials that traditional bulk recycling loses entirely.
The results are significant. Apple now uses 99% recycled rare earth elements in its magnets — essentially zero just a few years ago. In 2025, Apple and MP Materials signed a landmark agreement to process magnets from retired Apple devices, turning the trade-in program into a domestic rare-earth supply chain asset.
Apple has offered to license Daisy’s patents free of charge to other manufacturers — an unusual move designed to catalyze industrywide adoption of precision disassembly and grow the volume of recoverable rare-earth material in the domestic secondary market. The company has set targets for 100% recycled rare earth elements in all device magnets — a commitment that, if widely replicated, could materially reshape supply chain economics away from Chinese primary production.
Bonus: Microsoft (MSFT): Recycling at Scale, From Server Rooms to Supply Chains
Microsoft’s role in the rare-earth supply chain is counterintuitive but increasingly undeniable. The company operates millions of servers across more than 60 data center regions — and is transforming the decommissioning of that hardware into a rare-earth recovery operation at industrial scale.
In April 2025, Microsoft completed a landmark pilot program with Western Digital, Critical Materials Recycling, and PedalPoint Recycling — processing approximately 50,000 pounds of decommissioned hard disk drives using acid-free dissolution technology to recover neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, gold, and copper. The process delivered a 90% high-yield recovery rate with an estimated 95% reduction in emissions compared to conventional mining.
Microsoft has achieved a 90.9% reuse and recycling rate for data center servers and components in 2024 — surpassing its 2025 target a year early, keeping 3.2 million components in circulation. Its expanding Circular Centers network — operating across the U.S., Netherlands, Ireland, and Singapore, with new sites planned for Cardiff, New South Wales, and San Antonio — handles the routing of decommissioned hardware back into active use or rare-earth recovery streams.
Through its Climate Innovation Fund, Microsoft has also invested in Cyclic Materials, which operates North America’s first facility producing recycled Mixed Rare Earth Oxide from magnetic materials. New Surface Copilot+ PCs now feature 100% recycled rare earth metals in their magnets — closing the loop from data center recovery to product manufacturing.
By. Charles Kennedy
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