EXCLUSIVE: Nvidia’s Biggest Risk Could Be A Mineral Nobody Has Heard Of

by | Apr 14, 2026 | General

The AI trade has been priced like a silicon story. It may be a materials story instead.

“AI uses more minerals than most people realize,” Harvey Kaye, Executive Chairman of U.S. Critical Materials, told Benzinga. Among them are materials like gallium, which have “very few substitutes” if supply tightens.

Often overlooked outside specialist circles, the metal sits at the heart of gallium nitride (GaN)—a technology increasingly tied to high-efficiency power systems in next-generation data centers.

And that’s where Nvidia Corp‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA) ecosystem is beginning to intersect with a potential bottleneck.

Gallium’s Quiet Entry Into The AI Stack

Nvidia’s collaboration with Navitas Semiconductor to develop next-generation 800V HVDC infrastructure brings GaN into sharper focus. These systems are designed to improve power delivery efficiency in AI data centers—an area that is becoming just as critical as compute itself.

That matters because AI isn’t just about chips anymore. It’s about moving and managing enormous amounts of power.

GaN, built on gallium, is emerging as a key enabler of that shift.

Here’s Where The Risk Sharpens

Gallium supply—and more importantly, processing—is heavily concentrated.

“China controls much of the global processing capacity,” Kaye notes, adding that “even small disruptions push prices up quickly.”

That’s not theoretical. Beijing has already restricted gallium exports since 2023—and later tightened those controls—underscoring its willingness to weaponize critical minerals.

For Nvidia, the exposure isn’t at the chip level—its GPUs remain silicon-based and manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE:TSM) —but deeper in the infrastructure layer powering AI’s expansion. If gallium supply tightens, the ripple effects could show up in power systems, deployment costs, and ultimately, the pace of data center scaling.

The result: a risk that doesn’t sit on the surface of the AI narrative—but runs beneath it.

And in a market focused on compute supremacy, it’s the inputs no one is watching that can tighten the fastest.

Image via Shutterstock