The Hormuz technology choke: Even the world’s most dynamic industry can’t escape this war’s fallout

Even though the Strait of Hormuz is just about 33km wide at its narrowest point, about 20 million barrels of crude oil and refinery products would pass through it every day before the war in West Asia. This was roughly a quarter of all seaborne oil trade. Since late February, tanker traffic through the strait has fallen sharply, driving up the price of Brent crude and triggering an oil shock.

But while our attention has been focused on oil, there are other consequences—equally, if not more significant—that could threaten the global economy in far more dangerous ways.Amid the freight sitting idle in the Gulf are 200 containers of liquid helium waiting for Iran’s permission to pass through the strait. These containers were chilled to near absolute zero when loaded, but have been slowly warming up with every day’s delay. If they are not allowed to pass within the next 40 days, the liquid helium will eventually revert to gas and be vented into the atmosphere, where it will be lost forever.Helium is produced as a byproduct of processing natural gas into its liquefied form, LNG.

Qatar accounts for roughly a third of the world’s commercial helium output. When QatarEnergy halted production after Iran attacked its Ras Laffan refinery on 2 March, helium output ceased. This leaves us staring at a global helium shortage both in the short and medium term.Chipmakers in the semiconductor industry use liquid helium to cool silicon wafers during the plasma etching process.

South Korea, home to Samsung and SK Hynix, sources 65% of its helium from Qatar, while Taiwan sources 69%. SK Hynix produces 62% of the world’s high bandwidth memory (HBM) units contained in every Nvidia H100 and B200 GPU. Without HBM units, GPUs cannot be made.