Stephan Engl

The Cloud Is Made of Rocks

technology

A gloved hand holds a layered grey rock against a blurred rocky landscape.

We describe technology in words that make it seem almost weightless: cloud, wireless, virtual, AI. The interface is a screen. The product is software. It runs somewhere “in the cloud.”

Follow the stack down and the language changes.

Cloud becomes data center. Data center becomes servers. Servers become chips. Chips become fabrication and lithography. Those depend on ultra-pure materials, specialized equipment, metals, minerals and electricity.

Eventually, beneath the abstractions, there is rock.

I do not know what this particular rock contains. That is not the point. A rock is only the beginning of a chain, and most of the interesting scarcity appears later.

Having the raw material is not enough. Only five companies globally produce polysilicon pure enough for the leading-edge semiconductor market.1 Farther up the chain, ASML says it is the only company able to make the EUV lithography machines required for the most advanced chips.2

The pattern repeats in critical minerals. Mining is only the beginning. Processing, specialized equipment, technical know-how and skilled people can become bottlenecks of their own.3

The deeper you follow the stack, the less obvious it becomes where technological power actually begins.

The cloud is made of rocks. The hard part is turning one into the other.

Where does technological power actually sit?

  1. U.S. Department of Commerce, “Department of Commerce Announces CHIPS Incentives Award with Hemlock Semiconductor to Help Secure U.S. Production Capacity of Semiconductor-Grade Polysilicon”, 7 January 2025. Commerce reports that only five companies globally produce polysilicon at the purity required for the leading-edge semiconductor market. 

  2. ASML, ASML 2025 Annual Report. ASML states that it is currently the world’s only manufacturer of extreme-ultraviolet lithography systems and that EUV is used for the most intricate critical layers of the most advanced microchips. 

  3. International Energy Agency, Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026. The IEA identifies processing and refining technology, specialized equipment, technical know-how, skilled workers and infrastructure among the constraints on diversifying critical-mineral supply chains.