September 2, 2025. Which future technologies will have the greatest demand for raw materials by 2045? Researchers from Fraunhofer ISI and Fraunhofer IZM are investigating this question on behalf of the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA). For the fourth time, the study “Raw materials for future technologies” provides valuable impulses and recommendations for action for politics, business, production, research and society as a whole.
Categories
Tags
Contact info
Silicon Saxony
Marketing, Kommunikation und Ă–ffentlichkeitsarbeit
Manfred-von-Ardenne-Ring 20 F
Fax: +49 351 8925 889
Contact person:
Whether we are baking bread, building vehicles or using new technologies: Our lives are based on raw materials. The demand for raw materials is constantly increasing, while we are using the available raw materials too wastefully. More than 80 percent of German industrial companies were suffering from supply problems at the end of 2023. Many raw materials are becoming scarcer due to the current political situation.[1]
Electromobility is an example of a fundamentally more sustainable but raw material-intensive future technology: electric vehicles are locally emission-free, but contain significantly more strategic and critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt or nickel than conventional vehicles due to the battery used.
In order to better estimate demand surges and the associated potential supply bottlenecks and price fluctuations, Fraunhofer researchers will estimate the raw material requirements for the coming decades up to 2045. The new study “Raw materials for future technologies 2026” is being carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI and the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM on behalf of the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA) at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR).
In the study, the researchers examine 34 future technologies in detail – from high-performance lithium storage systems to wind turbines and data centers. In various socio-economic scenarios, they examine the effects of the future industrial use of future technologies on the demand for raw materials and which raw materials these innovations are particularly dependent on. Among other things, a scenario is considered in which regional rivalries increase worldwide and international cooperation is weakened. As a result, environmental protection and corresponding legislation lose attention.
[1] Source: IEA, Alkane, ADAMA Intelligence via Wood Mackenzie
The shortage of raw materials continues to force companies to reduce their production – the lack of materials is hitting the electronics and automotive industries particularly hard. “As a high-tech location, Germany is particularly vulnerable due to its high dependence on imports of raw materials,” explains Jana RĂĽckschloss, a scientist at Fraunhofer IZM. In the large-scale long-term study, she is investigating the raw materials consumed for the storage technologies used in data centers.
The question is to what extent the global data flow will increase. Even with a slight change in the growth factor, exponential growth and the long period up to 2045 will result in enormous differences in the volume of data (see chart). Decisions, both in the various scenarios assumed in the study and in real life, therefore have a major impact on the future.
The secure supply of raw materials in Germany is an essential prerequisite for the international competitiveness of the economy. New megatrends and innovative leaps in technological development can lead to unexpected surges in demand – for example for high-tech raw materials – and thus to supply bottlenecks and, at least temporarily, to strongly fluctuating commodity prices.
The increasing spread of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact are also considered in the current study. While hardly anyone worked with AI in everyday life five years ago, it is omnipresent today. The rapid increase is accelerating the expansion of data centers and the necessary IT infrastructure. Researchers will therefore always take current developments in AI into account in the technologies examined.
The new study updates the results from the 2009, 2016 and 2021 studies, which were also carried out using the same study design. The study is an important part of DERA’s raw materials monitoring, which was mentioned in the German government’s raw materials strategy in 2010 and has been implemented since then.
The two Fraunhofer Institutes combine expertise from applied research and future studies and have cross-sectional knowledge from a wide range of technologies. The final results of the current, fourth study are expected in early summer 2026. They will be made available online in the form of a report and at a public event via stream. The regular updating of the study is part of DERA’s raw materials monitoring.
– – – – – –
Photo: Sonja Och
