SandboxAQ and Jack Hidary at Davos:

how AI and quantum computing could accelerate materials innovation

By SandboxAQ editorial team | Last updated: []

At Davos 2026, a panel titled “The Geopolitics of Materials” framed critical minerals as a defining constraint on the energy transition and AI buildout — not a background variable, but a strategic chokepoint. In a Mining Digital recap of that conversation, Jack Hidary, CEO of SandboxAQ, argued that one of the fastest levers is using AI and quantum computing to design alternative alloys — reducing reliance on constrained inputs rather than waiting for new mines to come online.

What the panel covered

The session was moderated by Ravi Agrawal, Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy, and included Jonathan Price (CEO of Teck Resources), Bandar Alkhorayef (Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources), and Boitumelo Mosako (CEO of the Development Bank of Southern Africa), alongside Hidary.

The opening framing was direct: the AI revolution and the energy transition are hardware problems, not just software challenges. Jonathan Price of Teck Resources put a number on the copper gap: global demand is expected to double by 2035, and based on known supply forecasts, the world will fall approximately 30% short. “If the metals aren’t available, it means that we can’t build the grid that we need or we can’t develop the data centres that are required,” he said.

Jack Hidary’s core argument: design around constraints

Hidary’s contribution to the panel was framed as an engineering path around the supply problem. Rather than waiting on new mines, he argued that AI and quantum tools could help redesign what materials are needed in the first place. As quoted in the Mining Digital recap: “We can now ask the question of the software, help us design a different alloy, an alloy of other materials that are readily available that we’re already mining, already have permits, already at scale and already plentiful that can give us the performance of a neodymium base magnet.”

The argument is not that AI eliminates scarcity. It’s that advanced computation can compress the timeline for finding substitutes that reduce dependency on the most bottlenecked inputs.

The battery concentration problem

Hidary also cited stark figures on battery supply chain concentration: 85% of all batteries in the world are made in one country, and 92% of all the lithium for those batteries is processed in China. That level of concentration, he argued, creates strategic vulnerabilities that go beyond any single commodity.

His term for the response is “sovereign battery production” — enabled by robotics and automation — to reduce geopolitical vulnerability across the full production chain: refining, materials processing, cell manufacturing, and industrial scaling.

Why rare earth substitutes matter beyond one commodity

Neodymium magnets are a concrete example of why substitute design matters at scale. High-performance magnets are embedded in many industrial systems and are difficult to replace without tradeoffs. If AI-assisted design can identify alternative alloys that deliver comparable performance using more available inputs, the downstream benefit is resilience across entire manufacturing chains — not just one component class.

SandboxAQ’s Large Quantitative Models are built for exactly this kind of physics-grounded materials problem — where design spaces are vast and experimentation is expensive. More on SandboxAQ’s approach to AI for science and discovery.

Other voices from the panel

The panel also heard from Boitumelo Mosako of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, who argued against the colonial “pit to port” extraction model — pushing instead for local processing and beneficiation so that resource-rich nations capture more of the value chain. Saudi Arabia’s minister highlighted the Kingdom’s mining ambitions as a third industrial pillar alongside oil and petrochemicals, noting that permits in Saudi Arabia now take 30 to 90 days, compared with up to a decade in some other mining-rich countries.

What to watch over the next 6–12 months

Validation of substitutes: evidence that alternative alloys meet performance requirements in real applications, not just lab conditions
Scale-up and manufacturability: progress from candidate materials to consistent industrial-scale production
Processing diversification: investment that reduces single-region dependence across refining and manufacturing
Sovereign production progress: whether robotics and automation make domestic battery production economically viable at scale

FAQ

What was the “Geopolitics of Materials” panel at Davos?

A session at the 2026 World Economic Forum that framed critical minerals as a strategic constraint on the energy transition and AI buildout, with leaders from mining, finance, government, and technology discussing supply chain resilience.

What did Jack Hidary say about alloy design?

He argued that AI and quantum tools can help design alternative alloys from more readily available materials — specifically citing the possibility of replacing neodymium-based magnets with alternatives that deliver comparable performance without the supply chain dependency.

What are the battery concentration statistics Hidary cited?

85% of all batteries in the world are made in one country, and 92% of all the lithium for those batteries is processed in China — figures he used to illustrate the scale of strategic vulnerability in the current supply chain.

What is sovereign battery production?

A strategy to build battery production capacity outside a single dominant supply chain, covering the full chain from refining and materials processing to cell manufacturing and scaling. Hidary connected it to robotics and automation as enablers.

How do AI and quantum computing help materials innovation?

They can screen large design spaces for candidate materials, narrow down what is worth testing, and shorten R&D iteration cycles — reducing the time from idea to validated, manufacturable alternative.

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