4 Types of Tech Companies That Need Raw Materials
Industries that rely on raw materials include the automotive, mining, and construction sectors. But the tech industry, characterized by its digitization and cloud-based nature, also relies heavily on raw materials. Such companies often retain industrial materials brokers to find suppliers of quality raw materials for their manufacturing processes.
So, manufacturing isn’t just about pulp and paper mills or textile facilities. Many tech firms that provide the consumer devices the masses demand for work and play need raw materials directly or indirectly to keep their operations running.
What follows are four categories of tech companies with particularly intensive raw material requirements.
- Consumer Electronics Firms
The consumer electronics segment has some of the most material-intensive products in the technology space.
Manufacturers of phones, laptops, tablets, televisions, wearables, and gaming consoles need various metals, plastics, glass, and electronics to build their products.
Specifically, the important raw materials that consumer electronics firms require include the following:
- Silicon for semiconductors
- Lithium, cobalt, and nickel for batteries
- Aluminum and magnesium for lightweight casing applications
- Copper for wiring and circuits
- Rare earth elements for speakers, vibration motors, and display technologies
- Glass optimized for screens
The pressure to produce globally sought-after high-performance devices has escalated. And material scarcity and supply chain issues might mean, among other things, a production delay. Working with industrial materials brokers can help reduce risks.
- Semiconductor Manufacturers
The semiconductor industry is heavily reliant on raw materials. This is because the production of a semiconductor chip requires high precision and specialized chemical materials.
If the materials are unavailable, it will be impossible for semiconductor businesses to produce the chips that are used in many modern devices.
Important raw materials in the semiconductor sector include:
- Gallium, germanium, indium, and arsenic for compound semiconductors
- Photoresists and etching chemicals for lithography
- Copper and gold for bonding and interconnects
- High-purity gases like nitrogen, hydrogen, and argon for creating ultra-clean environments
The semiconductor sector is facing geopolitical and supply chain challenges because most of the materials used in the sector are sourced from a limited number of countries. That’s another reason to consider using industrial materials brokers to secure dependable supplies and lower the risks of downtime that hits the corporate bottom line.
- EV & Battery Tech Firms
As the global development of electric vehicles and energy storage solutions continues to expand, the sector has the potential to be a raw material heavyweight.
Required basic materials for EVs and energy storage solutions include the following:
- Lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese for battery cathodes
- Copper and aluminum for wiring, motors, and cooling systems
- Rare earth elements, such as neodymium, for high-strength magnets
Battery and electric vehicle companies are partnering with mining companies either through investment in mining operations and recycling processes to ensure a sustainable supply source.
- Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure Firms
Another tech space that relies on raw materials is the data center and cloud infrastructure industry. For instance, each rack housing a server, each cooling solution, each network cable, and each element of the electric infrastructure requires large amounts of raw materials.
Examples of the raw materials needed in the industry include the following:
- Steel and aluminum for server frames
- Silicon and rare earth elements for processors
- Copper for extensive wiring and networking hardware
- Concrete for facility construction
- Coolants and refrigerants for temperature control
The rise in AI, cloud computing, and streaming media has driven the increased need for data centers. Each data center requires thousands of servers, enormous amounts of cable, and a cooling system that involves chemical compounds and specialty metals.
The digital economy, ranging from mobile applications to enterprise AI, wouldn’t be possible without such materials.
Whether it’s making consumer electronics, microchips, EVs, or cloud infrastructure, the availability of raw materials plays a crucial part. The companies that source sustainable materials from dependable suppliers will come out on top in the long run.
