Hurricane Helene's devastation has blocked access to a one-of-a-kind mine for AI chips

• Hurricane Helene tore through North Carolina over the weekend, causing widespread devastation.
• The town of Spruce Pine was hit hard, and it could have global ramifications.
• Two mines there are a primary source of high-purity quartz, a key material for making semiconductors.

A small town in North Carolina hit by Hurricane Helene is essential to producing the world's semiconductors — and experts said that any long-term damage to it risked disrupting global supply chains.

Spruce Pine is home to two mines that experts say are a key source of high-purity quartz. This crucial material is used to make the chips that power everything from smartphones to data centers.

It's not clear whether the mines in Spruce Pine were affected by the hurricane that tore through North Carolina over the weekend and has left more than 100 people dead in the US since it made landfall last week.

But North Carolina's live traffic map shows that nearby roads were affected by the storm.

"All roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed, and non-emergency travel is prohibited," an alert on the government site said Monday.

It added: "There are many closed roads that are not listed on this site as many areas are not able to report at this time."

The official website for Mitchell County, which includes Spruce Pine, said Monday a road that's a five-minute drive from the mines was partially closed because of a "partial washout."

Spruce Pine was hit with over 2 feet of rain between Tuesday and Saturday, The Associated Press said.

A Facebook post from the county government described the flooding as "catastrophic" and said a "good bit" of the county's infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged by floodwater.

"We ask that you please limit unnecessary travel to conserve fuel and other resources," the Spruce Pine Police Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, wrote in a Facebook update on Sunday.

Supply-chain 'pinch point'

The town's quartz-mining sites are run by two companies, Sibelco and Quartz Corp .

The two firms play a huge role in the global supply chain that ultimately ends in smartphones and powering cutting-edge AI systems.

The ultrapure quartz mined at Spruce Pine is essential for making silicon wafers, a key component in semiconductors manufactured by the likes of the Taiwanese tech firm TSMC.

On Monday, a spokesperson for Quartz Corp. declined to comment on the hurricane's impact and said it was too early to assess any effect on quartz production. The spokesperson added that the company's priority was people.

Sibelco did not respond to a request for comment.

Ed Conway, a Sky News journalist and author who has written a book about precious-material supply chains, described the two mines as an "incredibly" important "pinch point" in the global supply chain.

He told Business Insider that making silicon wafers requires melting down nearly pure silicon in a crucible made from high-purity quartz — of which the only large-scale source is the North Carolina mines.

"It's the only place that we've discovered a very large resource of this particularly high-purity quartz," he said.

"The quartz in Spruce Pine formed deep in the Earth without a lot of water carrying in other impurities," Yinan Wang, a geologist, said.

"If we don't have access to those mine for a long period of time, then the global supply of these silicon wafers is under threat," Conway added.

Seaver Wang, a codirector of the climate and energy team at the Breakthrough Institute, told BI in an email that most chipmakers "likely maintain some stockpiles to ride out a short disruption."

But the extent of damage will determine the ultimate impact on semiconductor supply, Wang said, adding that while the mines are on high ground, it could take weeks to restore roads and power.

"If the mines resume operations within a few weeks, the impact may be minimal," he said. "If more serious damage occurred at the mines, then both the chip and solar industries could see supply chain shortages and price spikes."

That's because the Spruce Pine mines are singular in their scale, he said.

"Other existing or new mines would take many months or years to ramp up, respectively," he said.