Granular Empires: The Geopolitical Struggle for High-Purity Quartz

We often think of the digital revolution as an ethereal realm of software, floating effortlessly in the cloud. We assume that the microchips powering our smartphones, military drones, and artificial intelligence networks are the products of pure, boundless ingenuity. The terrifying reality is that the entire modern technological infrastructure hinges on a highly physical, rapidly depleting natur...