This is the inaugural post of Tantalum Strategy, the research desk I am launching at tantalum.info.
What we cover
The conversation about artificial intelligence is priced in compute. That pricing is real. What is talked about less is the physical economy underneath it. The copper that wires data center power chains. The rare earth magnets in cooling motors. The helium that semiconductor lithography depends on. The lithium and uranium that show up downstream of every AI capacity announcement. The niobium that goes into the high temperature steel used for transmission infrastructure.
These materials concentrate in a small number of geographies. Many of them are in the Global South. Many of them are in Brazil. That is the angle the desk anchors in.
What we publish
Tantalum Strategy publishes three things.
The first is a set of three proprietary indexes, updated weekly:
- TAI, the Tantalum AI Materials Index, a weekly benchmark for materials disproportionately scaling with AI infrastructure buildout.
- SOV50, the Sovereignty 50, tracking materials where one country accounts for the majority of global supply.
- SDX, the Southern Diversification Index, equity weighted exposure to the alternative supply base for AI-relevant materials outside the China + DRC nexus: Brazil, the Lithium Triangle, the African Copperbelt, plus selective Australian and Angolan producers.
The methodology behind each index is public and lives at /indexes/methodology. The constituent weights are proprietary editorial judgment of the desk.
The second is weekly research. Supply, policy, and capital flows. What moved this week and why. The Brazil angle that nobody else is covering.
The third is bespoke advisory work for builders, investors, and policymakers operating in this space.
What you can expect from here
A short email every Monday with the week’s index moves, the research published that week, and a list of concrete signals to watch in the next 30 days. You can subscribe at the bottom of the home page.
If you want to talk to the desk about advisory work, institutional access to the indexes, custom research, or press inquiries, the contact page is /contact.
We are just getting started. Thank you for being here at the beginning.