Someone will replace copper or lithium. Chile has known this for five years.
Desde los laboratorios de Singapur, Israel e Inglaterra, empresas extranjeras trabajan en silencio para reemplazar el cobre y el litio, los pilares sobre los que Chile ha construido su economía moderna. Pablo Zamora, cofundador de NotCo, advierte que el país se encuentra ante un espejo histórico: el mismo patrón que llevó al colapso del salitre a principios del siglo XX se repite hoy, mientras Chile sigue comprando tecnología foránea en lugar de desarrollar la propia. La pregunta que subyace no es si el mundo dejará de necesitar lo que Chile vende, sino si Chile estará preparado cuando ese momento llegue.
- Empresas en Singapur, Israel e Inglaterra ya trabajan en reemplazos sintéticos para el litio y el cobre, y algunas están cerca de lograr avances concretos.
- Chile lleva más de cinco años expuesto a esta amenaza sin haber tomado medidas preventivas, repitiendo la inacción que precedió al colapso del salitre hace un siglo.
- Las mineras chilenas prefieren importar tecnología probada desde Finlandia, Australia o Canadá antes que financiar investigación doméstica, priorizando el corto plazo sobre la resiliencia estratégica.
- La brecha entre las universidades y el sector productivo se ha profundizado: la academia no forma a los profesionales que la industria necesita, y nadie apura el paso para cerrar esa distancia.
- Zamora llama a aumentar la inversión en I+D y a tender puentes reales entre la investigación académica y la industria antes de que las tecnologías de reemplazo maduren y el margen de acción desaparezca.
Pablo Zamora, doctor en biotecnología y cofundador de NotCo, entregó esta semana una advertencia de peso histórico en un programa radial chileno: empresas extranjeras están desarrollando activamente tecnologías para reemplazar el cobre y el litio. No se trata de una amenaza abstracta. En laboratorios de Singapur, Israel e Inglaterra, algunos de esos esfuerzos están ya bastante avanzados.
El paralelo que trazó Zamora fue con el colapso del salitre de principios del siglo XX. Cuando científicos alemanes lograron sintetizar nitrógeno del aire, la industria chilena del nitrato natural se desvaneció casi por completo. Un solo avance tecnológico bastó para hundir un orden económico entero. Zamora ve el mismo patrón repitiéndose hoy, con una diferencia crucial: esta vez Chile tiene la historia como advertencia, y aun así no actúa.
Según Zamora, el riesgo existe desde hace más de cinco años y no se han tomado medidas preventivas. Las empresas mineras prefieren comprar soluciones tecnológicas en el extranjero antes que invertir en centros de investigación locales que, según él, tienen capacidad real para desarrollarlas. Es una lógica cómoda y de corto plazo que, argumenta, constituye un error estratégico profundo.
El problema no se limita a las decisiones corporativas. Las universidades no están formando a los profesionales que el sector productivo necesita, y el diálogo entre la academia y la industria se ha deteriorado. Chile se ha vuelto experto en extraer recursos naturales, pero esa extracción depende de tecnología e innovación que provienen de otros países, países que anteponen sus propios intereses.
La advertencia de Zamora no es que el reemplazo sea inevitable, sino que Chile está desprevenido para cuando ocurra. El país ya vivió esta historia. Sabe lo que pasa cuando el mundo deja de necesitar lo que uno vende. Y sin embargo, frente a la misma amenaza, parece elegir de nuevo el camino de menor resistencia. La historia, sugiere Zamora, no suele perdonar dos veces la misma distracción.
Pablo Zamora, a biotechnology doctorate holder and co-founder of NotCo, sat down with a Chilean radio program this week with a warning that felt almost historical in its weight. Foreign companies, he said, are working right now to replace copper and lithium—the two minerals that keep Chile's economy afloat. The threat is not theoretical. It is happening in laboratories in Singapore, Israel, and England, and some of these efforts, he noted, are already quite advanced.
The parallel Zamora drew was to a disaster most Chileans know by name but few have lived through: the salitre collapse of the early twentieth century. A century ago, German scientists figured out how to synthesize nitrogen from the air instead of mining it from the ground. That single innovation hollowed out Chile's economy. The country that had built its wealth on natural nitrate deposits watched as the industry essentially vanished. An entire economic order collapsed because someone, somewhere, solved a problem differently.
Zamora, who also served as board president of Fundación Chile, was not being alarmist for effect. He was describing a pattern he sees repeating. "We are facing the threat that someone will quickly replace copper or lithium," he said. The risk, he emphasized, has existed for more than five years. No preventive measures have been taken.
The companies he knows about are real. In Singapore and Israel, firms are working on lithium replacements. In England, companies are pursuing copper alternatives. Some are close to breakthroughs. Yet Chile's response has been, in his assessment, reckless. The country's mining companies prefer to buy technology from Finland, Australia, or Canada rather than develop it domestically, even though Chile has research centers capable of doing the work. The logic is short-term and comfortable: why invest in uncertain innovation when proven solutions exist elsewhere?
But that logic, Zamora argued, is a strategic error. Chile has become expert at extracting natural resources—at the physical act of pulling minerals from the earth. What it has not done is build the technological and intellectual infrastructure to protect those resources from obsolescence. The country depends on innovations that come from other nations, innovations that serve other nations' interests first. "We are experts in the exploitation of natural resources, but that exploitation depends on technology and knowledge and innovations that come from countries other than ours," he said.
The problem runs deeper than corporate purchasing decisions. Universities have fallen behind. They are not training students in the competencies that industry actually needs. There is a gap between what academia produces and what the productive sector requires, and no one is rushing to close it. The conversation between the university and the factory floor, between the researcher and the entrepreneur, has atrophied.
Zamora's warning is not that replacement technologies will definitely emerge—though they might. It is that Chile is unprepared for the moment when they do. The country has been here before. It knows what happens when the world stops needing what you sell. And yet, facing the same threat again, it is choosing the path of least resistance: buying solutions from abroad, investing minimally in domestic innovation, hoping that copper and lithium will remain valuable long enough that the question never becomes urgent. History suggests that hope is not a strategy.
Notable Quotes
We are experts in the exploitation of natural resources, but that exploitation depends on technology and knowledge and innovations that come from countries other than ours.— Pablo Zamora, NotCo co-founder
Universities have fallen behind in training and are not developing the competencies that industry requires today.— Pablo Zamora
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Zamora think this is different from normal market competition? Companies develop better products all the time.
Because it's not about better—it's about replacement. A more efficient copper mine is competition. A material that does what copper does without needing to mine it at all is extinction. That's what happened with salitre. It wasn't that someone mined it better. It was that someone made it unnecessary.
But Chile has had a century to learn from that. Why hasn't it?
Because the lesson and the incentive point in opposite directions. Mining copper is profitable today. Investing in R&D to prevent copper from becoming obsolete is expensive and uncertain. Companies choose the profitable thing. Governments don't force them to choose differently.
What would actually need to happen for this to change?
Universities would need to train people in what industry actually needs. Companies would need to fund research domestically instead of buying it abroad. The government would need to make that economically rational. Right now, none of those things are happening.
Is Zamora saying it's already too late?
He's saying the clock is running. The companies working on replacements have been at it for five years or more. At some point, one of them will succeed. When that happens, Chile will wish it had started building alternatives yesterday.
What does he think Chile should be doing instead?
Investing heavily in innovation. Building bridges between universities and industry. Developing domestic technology so that when the world stops needing copper and lithium, Chile has already figured out what comes next. The irony is that Chile has the talent and the research centers to do this. It's choosing not to.