The expansion of a quartz mine is providing a breath of life to a small, desolate North Carolina town that is now set to become a powerhouse for the world’s AI revolution.
Sibelco’s mines have been extracting quartz in Spruce Pine since the 1970s but its $500 million investment between now and 2027 will fuel the global demand for semiconductors.
The expansion comes as Nvidia has become the leading global manufacturer of semiconductor chips, holding roughly 80 percent of the global market share as of last year.
The global quartz market value reached $8.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach nearly $18.7 billion by 2031, with China topping other countries as the largest customer.
Spruce Pine is the leading producer of high-purity quartz needed to make AI chips
The Sibelco mine is located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina and is the top producer of the world’s high-purity quartz
The mines produce a rare type of quartz that can be used to make AI semiconductor chips that are also found in laptops and cellphones
Sibelco’s mining sites are located in the small town of Spruce Pine, about two hours northwest of Charlotte, and increasing its high-purity quartz output will make the US the leading supplier of the mineral.
High-purity quartz is a vital component of building semiconductor chips which helps AI-powered software to process large amounts of data quickly and accurately and is used in cellphones, laptops, and other electronic devices.
The quartz must be high-purity because if there are any imperfections, it can hinder the effectiveness, speed and accuracy of the semiconductors.
Nvidia is currently dominating the market as the top chipmaker and was the first to reach a $2 million market capitalization last month from the surge in hardware needed to power AI models.
Spruce Pine is the only known place in the US that can fulfill the growing need for semiconductor chips which is increasing by an annual rate of 5.6 percent.
Quartz needs to be high-purity to make AI chips because any impurities can cause them to run slower and with less accuracy
Sibelco is expanding its mine and investing a total of $700 million through 2027
The facility is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
This marks the second expansion announcement in less than a year, with Sibelco confirming it was investing $200 million in April 2023 with the mine’s completion set for 2025.
Spruce Pine is a small town nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and houses a population of 2,200 people, down from 2,700 residents in 2018.
The town has seen a drop in revenue as the number of tourists visiting the area have slowly depleted, causing some major retailers and restaurants to shutter their doors.
After a renowned chef closed down his restaurant called Knife & Fork, local media outlets questioned if it would be part of a growing trend.
But now a long-closed movie theater and empty storefronts line the downtown streets, leaving the two mines as the predominant leaders in the town.
In 2019, the company was up for its DEQ permit renewal and residents pushed for changes to the permits after a nearby quarry, called Quartz Corp., illegally dumped hundreds of gallons of hydrofluoric acid into the nearby North Toe River.
The town relies on its wooded areas and picturesque streams to reel in tourists, but residents complained that enough wasn’t being done to protect the river’s water quality.
Sibelco has boasted that it is ‘in an excellent position to respond to market demand and ramp up production sustainably thanks to our customers’ appreciation of our high-quality products.’
The company also claimed the enlarged mining area will create valuable new jobs in North Carolina and ‘will ensure that Spruce Pine remains the world’s leading source of HPQ.’
The Sibelco mine opened in the 1970s (pictured)
Many storefronts, restaurants and movie theaters in Spruce Mine have closed since the mine opened
Quartz is extracted from the earth by first using explosives in open pit mines to expose the deposits, however, the mineral is sensitive to sudden changes in temperature and could be damaged if it’s removed too quickly.
After the quartz veins are exposed, miners work to extract the mineral using bulldozers to remove surrounding soil and clay.
The miners use hand tools to remove the crystals which are then crushed and ground into a fine powder.
Other minerals found in the area include mica, kaolin and feldspar which have been pulled from the area for centuries.
The extraction of the valuable minerals started 380 million years ago when Native Americans dug tunnels into the mountainside to extract mica – a mineral dust used today in insulation for electric cables and as an asphalt and cement filler.
Kaolin is a type of white clay used to make rubber, paper and paint while feldspar is used as a glaze for glassmaking and ceramics.
Geologists have estimated that the Spruce Pine mining district was created when Africa and North America collided millions of years ago which caused intense friction, generating heat reaching about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit about nine to 15 miles beneath the earth’s surface.
The combination created mineral-forming liquid, which over 100 million years, cooled and crystallized, and as the plate under the Appalachian Mountains shifted, the weather eroded the rock, leaving the valuable minerals near the surface.
The lack of water at the friction point prevented the quartz from developing impurities, making it the high-purity mineral needed to make AI chips.
Impurities in quartz are incredibly common – affecting roughly TK of the mineral – rendering it useless for creating semiconductors.
‘I’ve evaluated thousands of quartz samples from all over the world,’ John Schlanz, chief minerals processing engineer at the Minerals Research Laboratory in Asheville, told WIRED.
‘Near all of them have contamination locked in the quartz grains that you can’t get out.’
As of October, the global quartz market is valued at $4.8 billion but is expected to reach $7 billion by 2030, according to a Rationalstat analysis.
Dailymail.com has reached out to Sibelco for comment on its expansion.
