Resource Geopolitics, Technology Moats, and Strategic Autonomy
Lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge / Luentoni Cambridgen yliopistossa 18.6.2026
Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon,
It is a privilege to speak with you here at Cambridge about Finland’s place in the global political economy at a moment when the very architecture of globalisation is being rewritten — and where, I am delighted to note, the partnership between Finland and the United Kingdom has never been more consequential.
For decades, we lived through what many called the era of ‘easy globalisation’: an age in which markets and efficiency were the guiding stars, supply chains stretched across continents, and prosperity seemed to flow from specialisation and comparative advantage. That era has not ended — but it has been fundamentally reshaped by geopolitics, technology, and the strategic race for resources.
Today’s world is one in which states compete to control chokepoints in value chains, secure access to critical minerals, and build defensible technological moats around their core capabilities.
In this lecture, I will argue that Finland can thrive in this new era by coupling clean power and trustworthy institutions with strategic capabilities in mining and refining, sovereign data and AI, quantum computing, space-based sensing, and Arctic maritime expertise.
In short: resilience paired with openness; science with statecraft; and long-term autonomy alongside near-term gains.
But first, let me introduce myself and my areas of responsibility:
As Minister of Economic Affairs, my responsibilities span several interconnected domains.
First and foremost, helping Finnish companies succeed — from start-up companies to our multinationals; from underground mining operations to remote monitoring from space, and everything in between, all business sectors essentially.
Implementing technology policies is an integral necessity in driving companies’ growth and innovation.
Making sure our companies have access to capital is another tool. We act in the areas of the market where private capital is not yet sufficient. This includes equity, debt and, of course, export credit.
Besides driving the growth of companies, I am also responsible for security of supply issues. This means securing the functionality of business and society as a whole in the event of a crisis. Finland is among the world’s leading countries in this area, and many nations currently have to rebuild capabilities we have maintained with rigour over the years.
Finally, the Financial Markets Department of the Ministry of Finance, which regulates financial markets, is also part of my portfolio.
So quite a bit.
Let me begin with a proposition that I believe is central to understanding where national power resides today.
In 2026, the primary determinant of national power is the capacity to build and sustain a science-based technological moat — a defensible lead in complex, R&D-intensive sectors where knowledge, talent, and infrastructure compound over time.
Countries that master advanced semiconductors, modern biotech, and the orchestration of computing at scale create leverage at the most critical points of global value chains. They set the rules, they define standards, and they possess instruments of influence that reach far beyond traditional tariffs or currency policy.
The visible hand of the state has returned to economic life. Technological bottlenecks — from lithography equipment to specialised chemicals — are too strategic to be left entirely to the market. And rival powers have emerged to challenge the Western-led global order, wielding export controls, industrial subsidies, and infrastructure finance as tools of national strategy.
This is the context in which Finland must make choices — calmly, deliberately, and with an eye to the endgame.
To understand the stakes, we can start by looking at the global race for critical minerals.
The world’s energy transition and digital transformation rest on a foundation of minerals: lithium for batteries, cobalt and nickel for cathodes, rare earth elements for magnets and guidance systems, high-purity silicon for semiconductors, and graphite for anodes. Control over their extraction, refining, and distribution confers power — and in crises, that power can be weaponised.
We have seen how export restrictions on specialised materials reverberate through industries.
If we want real strategic autonomy, we must invest not only in upstream production but in allied refining capacity, stockpiling, off-take agreements, and new trading ecosystems that make coercion harder and accountability stronger.
Finland possesses assets that many larger nations envy. We have significant reserves of nickel and cobalt, and we retain refining capabilities that are increasingly rare within the European Union. We have a tradition of responsible mining, a regulatory culture that values environmental stewardship, and a society that understands long-term industrial policy.
This is precisely the complementarity that underpins the deepening Finland–UK relationship on critical minerals and strategic technologies, anchored in our shared membership of the Minerals Security Partnership and our common commitment to allied supply chain resilience.
Both governments have signalled their intent to promote responsible investment in secure and sustainable critical mineral projects, including circularity of critical minerals, to enhance supply chain resilience and diversification.
The UK is a critical partner here: as a sophisticated manufacturing and advanced engineering economy with a fast-growing battery, electric vehicle, and electronics base — not least through Gigafactory investment and the broader Faraday Battery Challenge* ecosystem — the UK needs reliable, trusted upstream mineral supply. Finland can be part of that answer.
Finland and the UK are also both founding members of the US-led Minerals Security Partnership — alongside the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and others — which is working to accelerate the development of diverse and sustainable critical energy mineral supply chains. In February 2026, the US held a Critical Minerals Ministerial with 54 countries, including both Finland and the UK, underscoring that minerals diplomacy has become central to allied strategy.
These strengths are amplified by Finland’s energy landscape.
In 2025, Finland had among the lowest electricity prices in Europe, with 95 percent of electricity from clean sources — nuclear, hydro, wind, and other non-fossil sources.
This brings me to data centres and artificial intelligence.
Once considered back-office facilities, data centres are now strategic assets — the digital age’s equivalent of ports and power plants. They enable cloud services, AI training, and the continuity of government and commercial operations. But they also consume vast amounts of electricity.
Finland’s challenge is to pace their growth, prioritise projects that bring genuine value-add, and design mechanisms that tie large compute loads to domestic innovation commitments.
If we can channel data centre investment into sovereign AI capabilities, local start-up growth, and specialised Finnish applications in industry and government, we will convert raw infrastructure into a durable moat.
With regard to AI, Finland also has unique datasets — for example in healthcare and mineral deposits — that could create significant strategic and commercial value.
Quantum computing is another strategic frontier that perfectly illustrates the interplay of science and statecraft.
Quantum technology’s implications are profoundly practical. Quantum systems exploit superposition and entanglement to explore solution spaces that classical machines cannot traverse at scale. This will likely have implications for secure communications, data protection, as well as pharmaceutical research and other areas.
Finland’s strength in quantum computing has deep roots. In the late 1960s, Professor Olli Lounasmaa founded the Low Temperature Laboratory, laying the groundwork for millikelvin refrigeration that superconducting qubits require to function.
This is an accumulated body of knowledge — embedded in people and institutions — that forms a genuine moat.
Finnish companies today produce ultra-low-temperature systems used by leading quantum labs around the world, and our hardware teams design and fabricate superconducting quantum processors with ambition and credibility. Our universities and research institutes continue to drive research in error mitigation, hybrid architectures, and near-term industrial applications.
Why emphasise this in a lecture on geoeconomics? Because quantum computing is one of the fields where the race is explicitly geopolitical. Governments have poured over $40 billion into quantum research globally. The United States, China, and the European Union have all framed quantum capabilities as instruments of national strategy.
The United Kingdom is also investing heavily in quantum research and industrialisation — through its National Quantum Strategy and a world-class university and start-up ecosystem centred on hubs such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Bristol — and this matters to Finland directly. There is very good grounds for deeper co-operation in quantum computing research and innovation, building on existing science and technology dialogues.
Finland’s cryogenic hardware expertise and the UK’s scale in quantum industrialisation, talent, and capital markets are natural complements.
Let us turn from the very small — the qubit — to the very large: Earth observation from space.
Space is no longer the preserve of superpower agencies; it is a domain where agile, deep-tech companies can deliver global impact. Finland is very strong in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). SAR satellites emit radar pulses and measure the returning signals, synthesising a large aperture as they move to generate high-resolution images in all weather and at all hours.
Finnish space company ICEYE has built one of the world’s most capable commercial SAR constellations, delivering near-real-time data to governments, insurers, and humanitarian actors.
What makes this a geoeconomic asset is not just the satellites but the actionable data they provide. Each launch adds capacity; each dataset enriches history; each algorithm improves detection.
This is also an area which the UK has recognised as very important, reflected in the growth of its own space sector around Harwell, Glasgow, and Goonhilly, and in UK Space Agency programmes on Earth observation.
ICEYE’s capabilities are precisely what both countries should seek to integrate more deeply into their shared security architecture.
[Iceye recently announced a EUR 450 million funding round, at a valuation of over EUR 10 billion.]
From space and ICEYE, let us come back down to sea level — and to real ice.
Finland’s icebreakers are emblematic of how specialised engineering can translate directly into strategic autonomy. Our shipyards and maritime engineers have spent decades designing and building vessels that keep Arctic and sub-Arctic sea lanes open through harsh winters. These ships are critical in regions where harsh winters cut off maritime logistics and where roads are not an option.
As climate change alters the Arctic, northern routes become more navigable — and more contested. Paradoxically, climate change increases the need for icebreaking even as it reduces seasonal ice. Year-round access increases economic interest and geopolitical attention. Icebreakers are the enabling technology for this emerging theatre: they ensure that LNG, critical minerals, and other cargoes move when ice would otherwise constrain them, and they support search and rescue, scientific missions, and naval presence.
During my visit to Washington in November 2025, I reaffirmed the ICE Pact cooperation at the US Coast Guard headquarters. This is an icebreaker development and procurement programme between the US, Canada, and Finland — industrial policy in its purest form. It combines national commitment with practical action. Other like-minded nations may join the programme in due course.
The United Kingdom, as a maritime nation with a NATO leadership role in the High North, a renewed interest in Arctic security through its Defence Arctic Strategy, and a Royal Navy with growing polar and offshore patrol capability, is a natural interlocutor here. The inseparability of Euro-Atlantic security from broader allied maritime strategy extends to Arctic governance. As activity in the High North intensifies, Finland’s icebreaking expertise and the UK’s naval and maritime industrial capabilities make for a natural partnership.
At this point, it is natural to ask how competition between the United States and China threads through all these domains, and what that rivalry means for Finland.
The US–China relationship is a contest for technological preeminence, resource access, and normative leadership in the institutions that govern trade, finance, and data. Supply chains are being rerouted to accommodate export controls on semiconductors and AI chips; rare-earth markets are shifting under the weight of tariffs and licensing regimes; infrastructure finance has become strategic.
For Finland, the first consequence is uncertainty. Sanctions and tariffs can be implemented much faster than factories can adapt. If a key component is suddenly caught in an export ban, a production line that depends on it may stall. If mineral refining is concentrated in a single jurisdiction, a diplomatic spat can ripple into our industrial planning.
The second consequence is pressure. Geopolitics on the one hand, and market realities on the other.
Navigating this requires clarity of principle and flexibility of method. Our principles are straightforward: we stand within the EU and allied democracies; we value open, interoperable technologies; and we believe in transparent, ethical governance of data and trade.
There are also real opportunities in this rivalry. The United States, the European Union, and like-minded partners — including the United Kingdom — are investing heavily in critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and strategic computing.
Finland, with our clean electricity, minerals refining capabilities, space and quantum technologies, can anchor segments of these chains.
The United Kingdom is particularly instructive here. Rather than simply falling in line with any single framework, the UK has actively built its own critical minerals partnerships — through bilateral agreements such as that with Saudi Arabia, its membership of the Minerals Security Partnership, and the G7’s Critical Minerals Action Plan. This middle-power instinct toward strategic autonomy within the allied framework is one that Finland shares.
To transform opportunity into durable advantage, we must align policy tools with industrial realities. I highlight five critical points.
1. Stability
Investment projects have long timelines. Investors need predictable permitting, clear fiscal terms, and visibility. Environmental standards must be rigorous and trusted, but they must also be timely and navigable so that good projects proceed.
2. Capability (technological and industrial)
Upstream mining without downstream refining does not deliver autonomy. We should build more allied refining capacity in Finland, under transparent governance, with traceability from mine to magnet and cathode. EU-based strategic stockpiles of critical materials should be sized and rotated in a way that smooths shocks without distorting markets.
3. Infrastructure
Our grid is a competitive advantage and it is of utmost importance that we keep it so with continued investment, maintaining flexibility to accommodate both heavy industry and large compute. Data centre growth also poses risks of crowding out industrial value-add. We must make sure that new electricity supply meets the growing demand, in capacity, time and preferably also by location. Ideally, we should see projects also committing to R&D in Finland, ensuring that Finnish talent and companies benefit.
4. Science Diplomacy
Finland’s credibility rests on substance. When we show up with quantum refrigerators, SAR constellations, and clean technology that actually work at scale, partners listen. We should deepen cooperation with the United States, the EU, and increasingly with the United Kingdom on semiconductors, quantum, and space. The growing Finland–UK science and technology relationship — including links between our research councils, universities, and innovation agencies — is a foundation to build on concretely.
Science diplomacy is not a soft instrument — it is how middle powers punch above their weight.
5. Resilience Testing
We must plan, prepare and rehearse for coercion and crisis scenarios. Coordination with the private sector converts theory into preparedness.
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None of this is without risk. Corporate alignment with state policy can raise reputational questions if not handled with integrity. Long project cycles can be buffeted by political winds. Global capital can reroute swiftly, and domestic politics must reconcile national interest with local concerns.
The answer is governance: environmental protection balanced with business needs; community benefit agreements that are tangible and fair; cross-party frameworks that survive electoral cycles; and transparency that keeps public trust.
If we are clear about our goals and honest about our trade-offs, the Finnish model — pragmatic, ethical, technologically sophisticated — can be our brand in a crowded world. And I would add: that model is recognised and respected in the United Kingdom, a country that shares our commitment to long-term industrial strategy grounded in the rule of law.
Allow me to close by returning to the theme of autonomy — and to the reason why Cambridge is the right place to reflect on it.
Strategic autonomy is not isolation. It is the capacity to make our own choices, to absorb shocks without losing our footing, and to contribute to the common security and prosperity of our allies from a position of strength.
In practical terms: it means clean, reliable energy that powers our industry; critical minerals and refining that feed our factories and those of our partners; sovereign data and AI that we control and trust; quantum and space capabilities that give us insight and leverage; and ships that break ice so that trade and science do not freeze with the seasons.
Finland and the United Kingdom are natural partners in this endeavour. We are both committed to the rules-based international order, both NATO allies with deep transatlantic ties, and both investing heavily in the deep-tech capabilities that will define the next decade of geoeconomic competition.
Finland cannot control geopolitics, but we can invest where science compounds; regulate where resilience demands; partner where values align; and compete where we can be world-class.
By doing this — calmly, patiently, and ambitiously — we can participate with success in the race for resources and in the technological competition.
Thank you.