HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhry has suggested that India should meet its demand for rare-earth minerals by recycling e-waste. Chowdhry, who is also the Chairman of the National Quantum Mission, has proposed this solution to reduce dependency on foreign sources. He claimed that 30-40% of domestic demand can be met through this “non-mined” route. This approach offers a faster alternative than waiting five to seven years for new mining projects to start, he added. This urgent need for domestic supply stems from the use of critical technologies as ‘weapons’ in global trade, according to Chowdhry. In an interview with the news agency ANI, Chowdhry explained that while the Centre and NITI Aayog have prepared a comprehensive plan for rare earth minerals, the faster option is to recycle electronic scrap. “Now, a rare earth plan has been put together by the government. NITI Aayog has worked on it. All that is going on. But it will take us five to seven years to get there. But there’s a faster way… the faster way is that a lot of that e-waste we were talking about earlier contains rare earths. So what we should do is take all that rare e-waste and convert it into the rare earth materials we need. Tons and tons of that can be created,” he explained.The HCL co-founder also warned that China’s control over rare earth elements poses a serious strategic risk to global manufacturing, including India’s plans for electric vehicles (EVs) and advanced technologies.“It’s the weaponisation of anything that you can think of. Software, hardware, rare earths, you know, EVs, batteries, all of these are being weaponised now,” he added.

HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhry on China’s control over rare earth minerals

At the interview, Chowdhry also discussed how China has gained control over critical minerals over the past decade and a half by sourcing globally and acquiring mines.“Rare earths are absolutely essential for many, many products. EVs, for example, and batteries, all these products use rare earth. What China did in the last 10 or 15 years: they started sourcing from all over the world and bought over the mines. So today, 90% of the world’s rare earths are controlled by them, and they can be weaponised. So if they don’t supply rare earth, a lot of our products cannot be developed, whether they’re in India and America or Europe,” Chowdhry noted.