Transition Investing: Matter over mind? AI’s 10 secret ingredients

Research evidence excerpt

Transition Investing: Matter over mind? AI’s 10 secret ingredients

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Transition Investing

Matter over mind? AI’s 10 secret

ingredients

Investment Strategy

Semis? Energy? Datacenters? Just try to run AI without: 16 June 2026

1) Helium and 2) Neon keep fabs running, while 3) High‑Purity Quartz underpins wafer Equity

production. 4) Ajinomoto Build‑up Film substrates connect chips to boards, with Transition Investing

advanced GPUs requiring up to 18x more than CPUs. 5) Gallium and 6) Germanium Menka Bajaj >>

enable efficient power, RF and photonics, while 7) Tungsten and 8) Antimony support Equity Strategist

thermal stability under extreme loads. Finally, 9) Graphite and 10) Rare‑earth magnets MLI+44 (UK)20 7995 5800

increasingly constrain scaling via power, cooling and energy storage menka.bajaj@bofa.com

Haim Israel >>

The Silicon of tomorrow: 10 inputs that gate it all… EquityMerrill StrategistLynch (Israel)

The next phase of AI deployment will depend on securing scarce elements and scaling +972 3 607 2007

haim.israel@bofa.com

them fast. Building on our Data centers primer, we identify 10 hard‑to‑replace

chokepoints across every layer of the AI stack. Most are critical minerals, but also noble

gases and specialized materials, all characterized by concentrated supply, limited

Exhibit 1: AI’s 10 secret ingredientssubstitution, and rising policy risk. AI demand shock is overwhelming systems, Spanning noble gases, specialty materials,

translating into structural scarcity, buildout disruption and price inflation. and strategic minerals

Substitution not keeping up = structural price inflation

Stockpiling of these critical inputs is accelerating, while recycling remains below 15% in

some markets, limiting near‑term relief.