While the mainstream investment world fixates on the latest Silicon Valley darlings, a profound shift is underway as foundational resource companies, from rare earth miners to data center operators, emerge as the true powerhouses of the new industrial revolution, with stocks like MP Materials and Core Scientific soaring over 300% in 2025.
The year 2025 is proving to be a watershed moment for investors, challenging the long-held belief that growth primarily resides in high-flying technology stocks. While names like Nvidia continue to dominate headlines, a deeper look reveals that the real market-crushing returns are coming from unexpected corners: the often-overlooked materials and infrastructure sectors. These “boring” miners are not just participating in the new economy; they are building its very foundation, leveraging strategic resources that are quickly becoming the new gold in a world hungry for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and national security.
Two companies exemplify this trend: MP Materials, a critical rare earth miner, and Core Scientific, a former Bitcoin miner now reborn as an AI compute powerhouse. Both have seen their stocks rally over 300% in 2025, demonstrating a paradigm shift where control over physical resources and essential digital infrastructure dictates market dominance.
MP Materials: America’s Strategic Play in Rare Earths
Forget the traditional tech boom; MP Materials (NYSE: MP) has been a quiet juggernaut, delivering a staggering 300% return to investors in 2025 alone. At its peak on October 14, the stock had surged an incredible 532%. This remarkable performance stems from the company’s critical role in securing America’s supply chain for rare earth elements, which are indispensable components in everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to advanced semiconductors and defense systems.
The United States’ heavy reliance on China for rare earths has long been a point of vulnerability, with 77% of U.S. consumption coming from the East in 2024. President Donald Trump’s administration has made bold moves to address this dependency, and MP Materials is positioned at the forefront of this national strategic imperative. The company owns Mountain Pass, one of the world’s richest rare earth mines and the largest producer in the U.S., giving it a significant competitive edge.
This strategic importance has attracted high-profile backing. The Pentagon acquired a majority stake in MP Materials through a $400 million investment, underscoring its role in national security. Simultaneously, tech giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) sealed a multiyear $500 million partnership to purchase recycled rare earth magnets from MP Materials for hundreds of millions of its devices, including iPhones. This dual backing from government and industry titans highlights the company’s undeniable strategic value, as Bloomberg detailed in a report covering these partnerships.
Looking ahead, MP Materials is set to achieve a major milestone with commercial magnet production targeted by the end of 2025. Furthermore, its deal with the U.S. Department of Defense includes building the 10X Facility, where 100% of the magnets produced will be purchased by defense and commercial customers for a decade. While its market cap now exceeds $11 billion, MP Materials’ unique position and crucial role in the global supply chain underscore its immense long-term growth potential.
Core Scientific’s Phoenix Moment: From Crypto Mine to AI Powerhouse
The story of Core Scientific Inc. (OTC: CORZQ) offers a fascinating parallel to MP Materials, albeit in the digital realm. This former Bitcoin mining giant, which once faced bankruptcy amidst the crypto crash, has found a spectacular second life as a critical infrastructure provider for the artificial intelligence industry. Its stock rallied over 300% as a result, leading leading financial services firm Jefferies to initiate coverage with a ‘buy’ rating, as a report from Benzinga detailed in October 2024.
The catalyst for this transformation was Coreweave’s $9 billion all-stock acquisition of Core Scientific, announced on July 7. New Jersey-based cloud provider Coreweave, which specializes in renting GPU-heavy servers for AI model training, wasn’t interested in Core Scientific’s old crypto rigs. Instead, it coveted the bankrupt miner’s massive infrastructure: 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of contracted power across data centers, already equipped with cooling and electrical gear perfect for demanding AI workloads. This acquisition instantly secures a substantial footprint of ready-to-go capacity, essential for fueling the insatiable demand for AI compute power.
Coreweave’s own journey is remarkable. Founded in 2017 as a small Ethereum mining venture named “Atlantic Crypto,” the company astutely pivoted in 2019 to focus on general-purpose GPU cloud services. This prescient bet paid off spectacularly in the ChatGPT era. With priority access to Nvidia chips and growing data center capacity, Coreweave rode the AI wave to a blockbuster IPO in March 2025 at $40 a share. The stock then skyrocketed over 300% within months, briefly valuing the company at around $75 billion, a valuation richer than many Fortune 500 firms.
This high-flying stock became the currency for the Core Scientific acquisition, a move aimed at vertical integration and securing a vital supply chain. As Reuters confirmed, owning Core Scientific’s facilities is projected to save Coreweave approximately $500 million annually in costs, while also de-risking its expansion in an industry constrained by physical infrastructure. However, the deal also comes with caveats; repurposing crypto facilities, designed for brute-force batch processing, for enterprise-grade real-time AI operations requires significant integration and adaptation.
The New Gold Rush: Strategic Resources Drive Future Tech
The parallel stories of MP Materials and Core Scientific vividly illustrate a fundamental shift in investment philosophy: “compute is the new oil.” In an era dominated by advanced AI models, the foundational elements of technology are no longer just software and algorithms, but the physical resources and energy required to power them. Every major tech player, from Meta (reportedly in talks to pour $10+ billion into Scale AI) to OpenAI (committing $30 billion per year for a dedicated 4.5 GW server farm via Oracle), is scrambling to secure chips, power, and data center space. These eye-popping deals underscore the unprecedented demand and the willingness to spend absurd sums for AI infrastructure.
The race for power capacity is particularly intense. Consider these major projects:
- G42 Abu Dhabi (planned): 5.0 GW
- OpenAI / Oracle (Stargate): 4.5 GW
- Northern Virginia region: 2.7 GW
- Coreweave + Core Scientific: 1.3 GW
- AWS nuclear campus (PA): 0.96 GW
While Coreweave’s acquisition of Core Scientific’s 1.3 GW instantly propels it into the major leagues, it’s still dwarfed by the mega-projects undertaken by global titans. The takeaway for investors is clear: megawatts and rare earth minerals are as crucial as cutting-edge AI models in today’s industrial arms race.
Investment Strategy: Navigating the Boom and the Bottlenecks
For investors looking beyond the immediate hype, the rise of these “mining” stocks presents a compelling, albeit complex, opportunity. The undeniable growth potential in critical materials and AI infrastructure is balanced by significant risks.
Key considerations for long-term investors:
- Valuation Concerns: While growth is robust, companies like Coreweave are trading at astronomical multiples. As Article 3 noted, “this deal will test how durable the AI mania really is.”
- Execution Risk: Integrating sprawling real estate portfolios and retrofitting crypto facilities for AI’s stringent requirements is a tricky undertaking.
- Debt and Profitability: Coreweave, for example, reported $1.92 billion in revenue in 2024 but lost $863 million and has leaned on $8 billion in debt financing. Servicing this debt requires consistent cash flow.
- Client Concentration: Reliance on a few key partners, such as Coreweave’s large multi-year contract with Microsoft (portions of which were reportedly canceled), introduces vulnerability.
- Competitive Landscape: These companies are competing with tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in cloud AI, which possess far greater resources.
The “gold rush” for AI capacity and strategic materials is real, and the shift towards foundational resources is an enduring trend. However, like any hot market, “when markets get ecstatic,” concrete realities eventually matter. Smart investors will perform rigorous due diligence, weighing the immense growth catalysts against the substantial execution and financial risks.
The Enduring Value of Strategic Resource Control
The stories of MP Materials and Core Scientific signal a profound reordering of the investment landscape. The future of technology and national security is increasingly tied to the control of hard infrastructure and foundational resources. Whether it’s the rare earths that power our devices or the immense compute capacity required to train the next generation of AI, the underlying “mines” are becoming the new battlegrounds for economic and geopolitical power. For those who understand this paradigm shift, the opportunities extend far beyond the traditional tech giants, into the crucial, often overlooked, companies that are truly building the future.
