The great tech race heading toward Greenland

Summary

POLITICO Tech Podcast Summary: "The Great Tech Race Heading Toward Greenland"

Release Date: March 31, 2025

In the episode titled "The Great Tech Race Heading Toward Greenland," POLITICO Tech host Stephen Overlee engages in a profound discussion with E. News reporter Hannah Northey about the burgeoning geopolitical and economic interest in Greenland. This comprehensive conversation delves into the intersection of technology, national security, and natural resources, highlighting Greenland's pivotal role in the current tech race.

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1. Introduction to the Greenland Tech Race

Stephen Overlee sets the stage by introducing listeners to the concept of the "Great Race of the North," an annual dog sled race in Greenland. This event unexpectedly became a focal point when it served as a pretext for a high-profile trip to Greenland by Second Lady Usha Vance, accompanied by Vice President J.D. Vance, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. The trip sparked controversy, perceived by many as an assertive maneuver by the Trump administration to stake claims in Greenland.

Notable Quote:

Stephen Overlee [01:15]: "We need Greenland for national security and international security."

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2. Political Maneuvering and Administrative Intent

The discussion pivots to the Trump administration's longstanding interest in Greenland, tracing back to President Trump's first term when the idea of acquiring Greenland was met with resistance. Hannah Northey explains that Trump's transactional approach and connections with business executives have kept Greenland's strategic importance in the national conversation, particularly concerning rare earth minerals and artificial intelligence (AI).

Notable Quote:

Hannah Northey [02:54]: "He's been interested in Greenland since his first administration... we don't really know if that means AI data centers or perhaps it's just security at this point."

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3. Greenland's Mineral Wealth and National Security

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on Greenland's abundant mineral resources, especially rare earth elements crucial for military technologies and modern electronics. Hannah Northey elaborates on China's dominance in the production and processing of these minerals, underscoring the vulnerability it poses to the United States.

Notable Quote:

Hannah Northey [06:15]: "Trump's focus has always been on rare earths... they're important for military technologies... China dominates the production and the processing of those minerals."

The discussion also touches upon the environmental concerns associated with mining in Greenland, such as uranium contamination and its impact on water quality and ecotourism.

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4. The Potential of Data Centers in Greenland

Transitioning from minerals, the conversation explores the viability of establishing AI data centers in Greenland. Stephen Overlee highlights the energy efficiency benefits due to the island's cold climate, which can significantly reduce the energy costs associated with cooling data centers.

Notable Quote:

Stephen Overlee [08:13]: "Data centers... use a lot of energy... if you put it in a cold climate, you reduce the energy spend on actually lowering the temperature."

However, Hannah Northey raises valid concerns about the practicality of such endeavors, including infrastructure challenges, workforce availability, and the potential latency issues due to Greenland's remote location.

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5. Business Interests and Strategic Partnerships

The episode delves into the involvement of business figures like Drew Horn from Green Met, who is instrumental in raising capital for projects like Tan Breeze, one of Greenland's largest rare earth deposits. Hannah Northey discusses the intricate web of business interests intertwined with governmental strategies, highlighting the complexities of advancing mining and tech projects in such a harsh environment.

Notable Quote:

Hannah Northey [12:11]: "There's a lot of different, like business connections, a lot of executives that had talked to Trump about this... potential deals or projects that could take off."

The conversation also touches upon the Trump administration's appointment of experts like Ned Mamula to roles that could influence the direction of geological surveys and resource extraction in Greenland.

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6. Future Prospects and Broader Implications

Stephen Overlee and Hannah Northey contemplate the future of Greenland's role in the global tech landscape. They discuss the broader implications of resource extraction in the Arctic, the challenges posed by climate change, and the potential for Greenland to become a new frontier akin to the historical gold rushes.

Notable Quote:

Hannah Northey [14:49]: "It’s like a miles thick ice sheet and it is melting... there's been just more and more competition... it's still just a really harsh environment and a difficult place to develop those mineral deposits."

The episode also briefly touches upon space mining ventures, drawing parallels between extraterrestrial resource extraction and terrestrial endeavors in places like Greenland.

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7. Conclusion and Reflections

As the conversation wraps up, both hosts reflect on the juxtaposition of ancient natural resources and modern technological demands. They emphasize the enduring relevance of rare earth minerals in today's digital and defense industries, underscoring the continuous interplay between environmental stewardship and economic imperatives.

Notable Quote:

Stephen Overlee [15:12]: "It's such a juxtaposition... the rare earths have been around forever... the reason we need them, though, is to build EVs and phones and computers and AI."

Hannah Northey expresses cautious optimism about the future, acknowledging the significant interest but also the substantial hurdles that lie ahead for Greenland in becoming a central hub in the tech race.

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Key Takeaways

• Strategic Importance: Greenland's rare earth minerals are pivotal for national security and technological advancements, especially as the U.S. seeks to reduce reliance on Chinese production.

• Environmental and Logistical Challenges: Mining in Greenland poses significant environmental risks and logistical challenges due to its harsh climate and limited infrastructure.

• Tech Integration: The potential establishment of AI data centers in Greenland leverages the island's cold climate for energy efficiency but faces practicality issues such as latency and remote location.

• Business and Politics: The intersection of business interests and political agendas drives much of the current activity surrounding Greenland, with figures like Drew Horn playing key roles.

• Future Prospects: While the interest in Greenland's resources is high, the realization of projects depends on overcoming environmental, logistical, and geopolitical challenges.

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This episode of POLITICO Tech provides a nuanced exploration of Greenland's emerging role in the global tech and security landscape, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted "Great Tech Race" unfolding in the North.

Transcript

[Stephen Overlee]

Make your next move with American Express Business Platinum. You'll get five times membership rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on amextravel.com plus enjoy access to the American Express Global Lounge collection. And with a welcome offer of 150,000 points, your business can soar to all new heights. Terms apply. Learn [e-mail] Business Platinum Amex Business Platinum, built for business by American Express. Hey, welcome to Politico Tech. I'm your host, Stephen Overlee. Have you ever heard of the Great Race of the North? Up until recently, I hadn't either. But it's this big annual dog sled race in Greenland. And up until mid last week, it was the pretext for second lady Usha Vance going to Greenland, a trip that included Vice President J.D. vance, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Now, this trip immediately became controversial, largely because it was viewed as an aggressive, pressure filled move from the Trump administration.

[Hannah Northey]

We need Greenland for national security and international security.

[Stephen Overlee]

So we'll, I think we'll go as.

[Hannah Northey]

Far as we have to go.

[Stephen Overlee]

We need Greenland since we know Trump has his eyes set on Greenland for reasons that include national security, critical minerals, and even AI.

[Hannah Northey]

And the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark.

[Stephen Overlee]

Denmark has to have us have Greenland.

[Hannah Northey]

And, you know, we'll see what happens.

[Stephen Overlee]

And this is what I really wanted to talk to E. News reporter Hannah Northey about.

[Hannah Northey]

Oh, man, it's like the great international.

[Stephen Overlee]

Race this moment that Greenland is in.

[Hannah Northey]

I mean, we are vying for these materials in the deep seas and out in the west, but it's also, it has these really like homegrown roots kind of effects on people, indigenous tribes and water. And so it feels like, I guess that's, it feels like a great race, but it's also just like the great.

[Stephen Overlee]

Debate on the show today. Hannah and I delve into this great race and why it runs through Greenland. Here's our conversation. Hannah, welcome to Politico Tech.

[Hannah Northey]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Stephen Overlee]

You know, I'm curious, I can't say that I have thought a lot about Greenland or heard a lot about Greenland until like Trump came around talking about how we need to own this ice island, which I don't say in a disparaging way to any of our listeners in Greenland. Where did this focus come from? Has this been on your radar or is it really something that started abruptly under Trump?

[Hannah Northey]

Well, so I've been on the mining beat for a year and a half, two years, and so I hadn't really focused on this before, but he was interested in acquiring Greenland in his first administration and made comments like this and was shot down way back then. Right. And then I was just, I included this in one of my stories just recently. But he's known people, you know, his, in his first administration that brought this up. And there's a lot of different, like business connections, a lot of executives that had talked to Trump about this. And so I think you, you know, as is Trump's transactional nature, he just knows people, gets into conversations, ideas come. And we've just heard him say the word rare earth so many times, it's hard to like pinpoint exactly where it came from. But he has been interested in Greenland since his first administration. As the vice president said on Friday, they want to give Greenland possibly a Trump style deal, one that benefits the people there. But we don't really know what that means. Right. And, you know, we don't really know if that means AI data centers or perhaps it's just security at this point.

[Stephen Overlee]

Well, the vice President's trip to Greenland on Friday, when she was there with the second lady, Usha Vance and other administration officials, had its own sort of political drama around it. And the trip itself was scaled back. Do we know if part of the reason they were there was like scoping out sites for mineral mines and AI data centers?

[Hannah Northey]

Well, it kind of came into the national spotlight kind of mysteriously. Right. Like the second lady planned the trip and then we learned who was going to be on it, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, which was kind of interesting. And we wrote a story about that. And then we slowly learned. All right, well, they're going to a dog sled event and they're going to go to the Capitol. And then it was pulled back. Now all of this is happening as President Trump makes a lot of comments about how Greenland is needed for national security. And then you have minerals sort of bubbling underneath there, like what kind of deals are in the making. But we don't really. And so they were, they were really promoting it as like a goodwill trip. We're here to learn about Greenland and its people and its tradition. But obviously there's this bigger overarching theme of Trump wants Greenland.

[Stephen Overlee]

Right. You wrote in one of your articles about this guy Drew Horn, who was involved in the first Trump administration, kind of helped plan this trip, right?

[Hannah Northey]

He was helping plan it, yes. He is involved in raising capital for different projects. Green Met is raising capital for something called Tan Breeze, which is one of the largest rare earth deposits in Greenland, which is very attractive Business wise. And yes, he is talking to the administration.

[Stephen Overlee]

What was his role in Trump 1.0?

[Hannah Northey]

He had a number of different positions. He was in the White House, I think he was at the Energy Department. He's former military and then he just now in this iteration of Trump, he's the founder of Green Met. So he's a really interesting person who has a lot of expertise in minerals, but he coordinated those efforts before.

[Stephen Overlee]

Got it. So tapping your mineral mind here. No, no pun intended. What does Greenland have that the US Needs from a mineral perspective?

[Hannah Northey]

So they have a lot of different types of minerals and metals. But Trump's focus has always been on rare earths or sometimes he says rare earth. And those are minerals that are actually not rare, but they're just really important. They're important for military technologies. And so those are the types of the metals that, that the United States wants to go after. And right now China dominates the production and the processing of those minerals. And so it's really a vulnerability for the United States. And so Greenland has pretty, a large, you know, deposit of these. But Greenland is also covered by this massive ice sheet. And so a lot of the activity is happening on the outskirts of the island. And there are other complications too. As we've reported, a lot of these deposits have uranium in them. So there's a lot of concern the environmental implications if you go developing those minerals and sort of what happens to, you know, water quality and fishing and ecotourism there. So there are a lot of complications, but really it's about rare earth. Even rare earths, even though they have a lot of different types of minerals.

[Stephen Overlee]

Got it. Yeah, it was interesting. I was reading about sort of how as frankly the Arctic ice melts largely because of climate change. That is sort of revealing and exposing perhaps new mineral deposits and resources that folks like the US have their eyes on.

[Hannah Northey]

Yeah, it's like a miles thick ice sheet and it is melting. And then as, as it melts, there's been just more and more competition and that's oftentimes what folks talk about. But still that's, it's still just a really harsh environment and a difficult place to develop those mineral deposits. Because you're also talking about is there enough infrastructure, are there workers? It's just like a lot of myriad factors that go into developing a com, you know, like a sector like that.

[Stephen Overlee]

Right. Why then, you know, in that kind of harsh climate, is there all this talk about data centers? What's the advantage of putting data centers there?

[Hannah Northey]

So personally I'm not sure if it's, you know, something that's going to come to fruition. But, you know, you hear a lot of people talk about geothermal or the colder climate, and maybe you could tell me about this. But, like, why do. Why would we want data centers there? But that is part of the business idea that's been batted around, especially by companies like Green Met. They're talking about it. But, yeah, maybe you have an idea why Greenland would be a hotspot for AI.

[Stephen Overlee]

I mean, from what I know, you know, data centers, especially these data centers that are supposed to be processing artificial intelligence, they use a lot of energy. A significant chunk of that energy is used up keeping things cool. Right. These data centers can run very hot from all the processing they're doing. And so if you put it in a cold climate, you reduce the. You reduce the energy spend on actually lowering the temperature. Right. And I was just looking up the average temperature in Greenland. It is low, pretty much no matter what month you're in. And so that is the kind of cold climate where you could save energy. Building a data center there. The flip side of this, of course, with artificial intelligence, a lot of people talk about you want very low latency. Right. You don't want a whole lot of lag time when you're trying to use this, this technology. And building data centers, you know, thousands of miles away on an ice island, doesn't necessarily lend itself to getting information there and back quickly. So I think that's probably why folks see a lot of potential there. But as you said, reality also sets in.

[Hannah Northey]

Yeah.

[Stephen Overlee]

The security angle here, I think, is interesting because that's what we hear Trump talk a lot about. We heard the vice President talk about this on his trip. You know, this idea that the US Needs to control Greenland for security reasons. How do minerals and data centers fit into that? Yeah.

[Hannah Northey]

So President Trump has talked a lot about trying to acquire Greenland for security reasons. And I have been peeling back in my own reporting kind of where minerals and processing and the international, I guess, competition for minerals fits into that. On Friday, we heard Vice President J.D. vance talk about the fact that military personnel on Greenland would be the first to notify the United States if missiles, for example, were shot into the United States. We hear about Greenland's, like, strategic location as these sea lanes open. But also in all of my writing, we have been talking about China controlling the production of rare earths and critical minerals, the vulnerabilities that that presents to the United States because we're so reliant on all of these materials. For, you know, our iPhones and computers and military equipment, clean energy. And we're just so reliant. And here's China sort of having a monopoly on these markets and also on the price. You know, if, if we do open up mines or processing plants in the United States, they still have to compete financially. So if China floods the market with cheap, with cheap material, they can't compete and they close. And so this has been something that both the Biden administration and now the Trump administration are really, you know, they're struggling with and they're doing it in different ways. And Trump, and the Trump administration just recently signed an executive order to boost mining and processing across the nation, which obviously is triggering concerns about public lands use. But yeah, I think that it's difficult to tell exactly where minerals fit into this, into our need for Greenland. Yes, the minerals are there and yes, they're highly sought after and part of this like international competition. But how easy are they, they to access? I think that really depends on who you talk to and has a lot to do with business interests.

[Stephen Overlee]

Well, speaking of those business interests, I know you've written about industry kind of being a buzz in all of this. What is in this for them?

[Hannah Northey]

Yeah, so we talked about Drew Horn at Green Met and he is in touch with the administration and he's talked to me about the different projects that he is advancing, which are pretty interest interesting. And he's working with investors in like New York and whatnot. You know, they want to bring these projects to fruition, they want to see them move forward. And there are other projects that could move forward. But a lot of the mineral wealth in Greenland has not been fully mapped. That's what Benchmark told me, which is like a mineral analysis firm based out of the uk and so it sounds like there's a lot of data that has to be collected. But I think that, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot happening. I think what's also kind of interesting from GreenMed is there's a man there named Ned Mamula and I don't wanna get his name wrong, but he's a geologist and he's actually Trump's pick to lead the U.S. geological Survey. So there's a lot of different, like connections and, you know, potential deals or projects that could take off. And you know, they have a lot of, there's a lot of interest in the Trump administration to see that move forward.

[Stephen Overlee]

It's almost like going west to find gold. It's like go to Greenland to find rare Earth minerals and data center sites or something. You know, it's like the new Westward hobby.

[Hannah Northey]

Yes, it's a really interesting spot. I don't know if it's going to come. I don't know if it's. If these projects are actually going to move forward. And I think as far as tech is concerned, you know, the Trump administration has really focused on AI in the United States, too. Right. Like, it's a policy point that I've seen them make. They're trying to advance these projects, and it's hard for us, you know, in the journalism world to really decipher what's a policy point, what's a talking point and what's reality, because it's also here in the United States, the administration has linked coal to AI, and so it's, I guess, like it's taking a realistic view of what could happen and what needs to happen. Or is it just a talking point to sort of boost a policy goal? And so I'm trying to keep that in mind in my reporting. I guess that's what I would say. And it also has tentacles, although we talk about it less these days in the EV supply chain. I mean, that was all we talked about under the Biden administration. Where are these minerals coming from? Are they going to be tracked? Is there due diligence as they move into the EV supply chain and the Inflation Reduction act takes hold? We don't talk about that anymore, but we still need those minerals. Now the focus is on military and, yes, AI and tech and just different applications. But the need is still there.

[Stephen Overlee]

Yeah. It's always fascinating to me as a tech reporter where, like, you know, it's like these things that are at once ancient and modern. Right. It's like, you know, the rare earths, like, harvested from that have been around forever. Right. And the reason we need them, though, is to build EVs and phones and computers and AI and all these, like, modern technologies. You know, it's such a juxtaposition.

[Hannah Northey]

Yeah. And we haven't even talked about space mining. Right. Like, they just had a space mining effort to go. Yeah, they just had an effort to go mine an asteroid, and I don't think it went too well also. Which has, you know, connections to Tesla and whatnot. More on the tech beat.

[Stephen Overlee]

Exactly. Well, listen, any reporting trips to Greenland coming up?

[Hannah Northey]

Maybe. We'll see.

[Stephen Overlee]

Right. We. We should make a pitch because I'm down to check it out. All right, Hannah, thanks for being here on Politico Tech.

[Hannah Northey]

Yeah, thanks so much.

[Stephen Overlee]

That's all for today's Politico Tech. If you enjoy Politico Tech, please subscribe and recommend it to a friend or colleague. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Music in our show comes from the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Our managing producer is Annie Reiss. I'm Stephen Overleigh. See you back here on Thursday.