'Rare earths are a national security issue': KIGAM chief Kwon Yi-kyun on solving the critical minerals supply chain crisis

"Semiconductors, batteries, electric vehicles, AI servers and the defense industry all depend on critical minerals. If a particular country restricts supply, production becomes impossible even when the technology exists. That is why we view rare earths not as an industrial commodity but as a security asset."

Kwon Yi-kyun, president of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM), marked his first anniversary in office with an interview in which he said critical minerals — with rare earths as the prime example — must now be seen not as an economic issue but as a matter of national competitiveness and security.

Demand for rare earths, which are essential to advanced industries including electric vehicles and smartphones, has surged while supply remains limited.

Rare earth deposits are scattered across the globe, but China monopolizes the technology to separate, refine and process them. China has accumulated decades of experience along with supply chains, a skilled workforce and established markets.

"Many people say catching up with China is simply a matter of resolving environmental regulations, but the competitiveness of the rare earth industry does not rest on any single refining technology," Kwon said. "What is needed is a vast industrial ecosystem connecting exploration, mining, separation and refining, materials processing and recycling — it is not a problem that can be solved just by catching up on one technology."

He added that securing a stable supply chain is the priority. "Korea will strengthen its resource assessment, exploration technology development and supply chain support systems to secure strategic minerals overseas," he said.

To that end, KIGAM has launched a project to build a "rare earth processing K-Plant" to establish a rare earth supply chain. The plan calls for advancing exploration and processing-and-refining technologies in an environmentally friendly manner by 2030, with the goal of securing a new supply chain and achieving technological self-reliance.

The rare earth processing K-Plant KIGAM is pursuing aims to acquire technology for separating and refining both light and heavy rare earths from ore, positioning Korea to catch up with China. The institute plans to build a cooperative framework with countries that hold rare earth deposits but lack the technical capacity to process them, as well as with domestic companies that will handle commercialization, to establish a new supply chain. KIGAM is also accelerating deep-sea rare earth exploration in international waters of the western Pacific using its research vessel Tamhae 3.

Kwon has set an "AI geoscience research era" as KIGAM's new vision, with a plan to combine data and AI into services that businesses and government agencies can use directly.

Vast amounts of data exist nationwide — geological maps, mineral information, drilling records, satellite imagery and marine survey data — but there are limits to how much humans can interpret and connect on their own. Linking historical geological maps, exploration records, drilling data and research reports to AI is an essential task, the institute said. AI can analyze data to identify patterns that humans have missed, maximizing researchers' capabilities.

KIGAM is redesigning its entire research operation around AI. Key initiatives include building a geoscience data platform, developing a Geo-LLM-based AI agent, and establishing AI-driven systems for resource exploration and disaster prediction.

"The competitiveness of a research institution depends on how much data it can secure and utilize," Kwon said. "In that sense, AI is not a choice — it is a matter of survival."

Looking ahead, Kwon said he wants KIGAM to be the institution that provides answers first on the country's pressing challenges — the critical minerals supply chain crisis, major earthquakes and landslides, and the issues of carbon neutrality and future energy — before his term ends.