# Rare earths & permanent magnets (fans, motors, gensets, wind)

Part ID: 10.04 · Layer 10 (Materials & upstream inputs)

Rare-earth elements and the permanent magnets made from them, used in motors and fans throughout the facility, from server and cooling fans to generator and turbine components.

Neodymium-iron-boron and similar rare-earth magnets are what make small, powerful, efficient motors possible — the motors inside server and rack fans, CRAH and fan-wall units, CDU and cooling-loop pumps, and the alternators and starter systems on backup generators and gas turbines (Layers 4, 5, 6, 7). The chain runs from mined and separated rare-earth oxides through magnet manufacturing, a step that has historically been concentrated in a small number of countries and companies.
Data centers are not the largest buyer of rare-earth magnets — that's still autos and wind — but AI infrastructure adds motors in places legacy IT didn't need them (liquid-cooling pumps, denser fan arrays) and draws on the same tight magnet-supply base that other electrified end markets are pulling from. Governments in multiple regions have pushed to build alternative separation and magnet-manufacturing capacity outside the traditional supply base, and some fan and motor makers are qualifying reduced-rare-earth designs as a hedge. For investors, the relevant signals are the pace of non-traditional separation and magnet capacity coming online, magnet-maker qualification cycles with data-center-relevant component makers, and how exposed a given fan, pump or genset supplier is to a single magnet source.

**AI delta:** Liquid cooling adds pump and CDU motors that air-cooled racks didn't need, and denser fan arrays add motor count, so AI infrastructure increases the number of rare-earth magnets drawn per rack even though data centers remain a small buyer relative to autos and wind.

## Companies

| Company | Role | Confidence | Ownership | Ticker | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arafura | manufacturer | inferred | public | ARU.AX |  |
| Energy Fuels | manufacturer | inferred | public | UUUU |  |
| Iluka | manufacturer | inferred | public | ILU.AX |  |
| JL Mag | manufacturer | inferred | public | 300748.SZ |  |
| Lynas | manufacturer | inferred | public | LYC.AX |  |
| MP Materials | manufacturer | inferred | public | MP |  |
| Neo Performance | manufacturer | inferred | public | NEO.TO |  |
| Northern Rare Earth | manufacturer | inferred | public | 600111.SS |  |
| Shin-Etsu | manufacturer | inferred | public | 4063.T |  |
| TDK | manufacturer | inferred | public | 6762.T |  |
| USA Rare Earth | manufacturer | inferred | public | USAR |  |
| Niron | manufacturer | inferred | private |  | iron nitride |
| Noveon | manufacturer | inferred | private |  |  |
| Proterial | manufacturer | inferred | private |  |  |
| VAC | manufacturer | inferred | private |  | Ara Partners |

Confidence tags: disclosed = company/filing statement; reported = trade press or partner list; inferred = taxonomy lead.