• Trump administration to use Pentagon AI to set mineral reference prices - gallium and germanium among first four targets The AI pricing tool purports to cut Chinese manipulation out of critical minerals markets. • Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. • You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful The Trump administration plans to use a Pentagon-developed AI program to set reference prices for critical minerals, including gallium and germanium, as part of a broader effort to build a global metals trading bloc, Reuters reported on February 24, citing three sources with direct knowledge of the effort. • The program in question is DARPA’s Open Price Exploration for National Security (OPEN), launched in 2023 to calculate what a metal should cost once labor, processing, and other inputs are factored in and alleged Chinese market manipulation is stripped out. • According to Reuters’ sources, the administration intends to use OPEN’s pricing model as the backbone for the reference price system that Vice President JD Vance proposed at a Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington on February 4, where more than 50 countries were represented. • Vance proposed that member nations adopt reference prices for critical minerals “at each stage of production,” enforced by adjustable tariffs.

Article Summaries:

  • Trump administration to use Pentagon AI to set mineral reference prices - gallium and germanium among first four targets The AI pricing tool purports to cut Chinese manipulation out of critical minerals markets. Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful The Trump administration plans to use a Pentagon-developed AI program to set reference prices for critical minerals, including gallium and germanium, as part of a broader effort to build a global metals trading bloc, Reuters reported on February 24,

Sources: