From Washington to New Delhi, Beijing to Pretoria, governments and investors are pouring billions into mines, refineries and “friend-shoring” alliances to diversify their sourcing for critical minerals, reducing their dependence on any single supplier nation. Why? As the world rewires its economy for AI, clean energy and advanced robotics and manufacturing, minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel have become the new oil: strategic, scarce and geopolitically charged.