Trend Global resource rush

Summary

EY describes three frontiers at Earth's extremes of depth, distance and altitude that are opening to resource extraction and geopolitical rivalry at the same time. The deep earth and deep sea hold large reserves of critical minerals, the Arctic offers strategic minerals, energy and increasingly valuable shipping lanes, and Earth orbit is treated as a limited resource for observation, communications, research and defence. Technology, geopolitics and climate change are opening these domains together, while digitalisation and the clean energy transition push mineral demand beyond what current sources can supply. Governments increasingly treat resource supply as a matter of national security. For workers this means new jobs in space operations, Arctic logistics and autonomous mining, and for leaders it means acting in places where governance is incomplete and the rules are still being written.