InterviewAlmonty Industries CEO touts tungsten’s pivotal role in AI era

Almonty Industries President and CEO Lewis Black delivers a welcome speech during the Sangdong mine completion ceremony held by Almonty Korea Tungesten Corp. (AKTC) in Yeongwol County, Gangwon Province, March 17. Courtesy of AKTC

YEONGWOL, Gangwon Province — With Almonty Korea Tungsten Corp. (AKTC) beginning tungsten production in Korea, the country is entering a new phase of industrial opportunity centered on the strategic mineral.

That potential extends to artificial intelligence (AI), a transformative force driving a new industrial revolution marked by technological breakthroughs on an unprecedented scale.

Lewis Black, president and CEO of global tungsten developer Almonty Industries, which runs the Korean subsidiary AKTC, believes that without the mineral, the ongoing AI revolution would not have been possible. He emphasized tungsten’s critical role in the production of chips and other hardware components that enable AI semiconductors to translate their designed software capabilities into real-world performance during a recent interview with The Korea Times at AKTC’s newly built tungsten ore processing plant in Yeongwol County, Gangwon Province, March 17.

Tungsten gas technology uses tungsten hexafluoride, also known as WF6 — a key specialty gas used in semiconductor manufacturing for chemical vapor deposition processes, making it essential to the tech industry. SK Specialty has established itself as a major global producer of WF6 with facilities dedicated to producing high-purity semiconductor materials.

“Without Korea’s development of tungsten gas technology, you could never have built a hardware to be able to run this new generation of software, which is what AI is really all about. They already had the software. They just didn’t have the hardware to be able to utilize it,” Black said.

“The addition of the tungsten gas technology has allowed these chips to run at much higher temperatures. And tungsten gas has virtually no resistance to energy so the technology was an extremely efficient development and it was in fact pioneered here in Korea. That has allowed AKTC to engage in AI because now you can build the hardware to take this software and algorithms into our homes.”

FuriosaAI's second-generation AI semiconductor RNGD / Courtesy of FuriosaAI

The CEO of the American tungsten mining firm, which also runs tungsten development operations in Portugal and Spain, addressed the importance of tungsten copper wire as another critical material for the AI industry.

"We also have to remember that it's not just tungsten gas but all wiring now is miniaturized through tungsten copper wire. It's so thin the wire is like a human hair but it's used in all these AI semiconductors as well. Tungsten has had a profound effect on building that hardware," he said.

Considering the mineral’s strategic importance and its wide-ranging applications across high-tech and defense industries, developing the Sangdong mine and constructing an adjacent processing plant was inevitable, according to the American CEO.

He noted that the mine, which has tungsten reserves expected to last more than 90 years, is located in Korea, one of a limited number of countries capable of refining the mineral effectively for commercial products.

Tungsten metal powders and tungsten carbide powders are essential for manufacturing cutting tools, wear-resistant components, tungsten wires and a range of critical parts used in electronic and electromechanical systems.

So far, Korea has largely relied on imports to produce these materials. The mine is poised to be a game changer for the country, according to Black.

“It’s very much worth remembering that a very few countries consume tungsten. The United States does, the EU does, Japan does, Korea does, India does a bit, and that's pretty much it in the West. Korea has a big consumer base for tungsten but they have no access to any of the tungsten products. They have to import everything,” he said.

“It's always a good, positive idea as a producer to be in a country that actually consumes your products, allowing you to remove customs and shipping. Right now, much of the shipping is blocked up because of the Strait of Hormuz and everything has come to a halt.”

Minerals contained in a tungsten ore sparkle under UV light at a run-of-mine pad next to Sangdong Mine in Yeongwol County, Gangwon Province, in this December 2025 photo. Inbox is tungsten concentrate. Courtesy of AKTC

Black also cited Korea’s advanced digital infrastructure as another key advantage of operating in the country.

“Korea has a digital infrastructure that has enabled us to automate this plant. This is an automated plant. It means we can monitor it from anywhere in the world remotely because of the digital infrastructure that exists here. We couldn’t do this in, say, Spain because they don't have the digital infrastructure that you have here,” he said.

According to AKTC, the Sangdong mine is among the largest deposits in the world and boasts some of the highest-quality tungsten resources known. The average grade of the Korean deposit stands at 0.51 percent tungsten trioxide, roughly three times the global average.

The Sangdong mine’s annual tungsten concentrate production capacity is expected to reach 4,600 tons when the planned Phase 2 expansion is completed in 2027. AKTC added that once fully operational, the mine could supply up to 40 percent of global demand outside China.

Despite the rosy outlook, Black stressed that the mine serves primarily as an alternative to Chinese tungsten, which currently accounts for more than 80 percent of global supply.

“Sangdong was always a dominant player until China broke prices so low it couldn’t exist. We faced the same problem in Portugal but we developed a lot of innovation and technology to survive China. A lot of those we have now moved to Sangdong. I think if China ever repeated it again, this mine would survive,” he said.

“But I don’t think we should look at Sangdong as a competitor to China. It’s just an alternative to Korean and U.S. consumers.”