PAX SILICA/ DECODED

PAX SILICA

DECODED//THE NEW SILICON ORDER & WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE PHILIPPINES

LINEAGE
  • PAX ROMANA 27 BCE – 180 CE
  • PAX BRITANNICA 1815 – 1914
  • PAX AMERICANA 1945 – ?
  • PAX SILICA 2025 –

This is the story of who controls the physical base layer of the AI age — the ore, the fabs, the fiber, the power — and of the day the Philippines signed on: 16 April 2026, signatory №13, home of the pact's first flagship hub.

OPEN THE DOSSIER SKIP TO THE PHILIPPINE CHAPTER

DOSSIER 01 // WHAT IT IS

THE DECODE

A peace named after sand. On 11–12 December 2025, nine governments gathered in Washington, D.C. and signed a declaration that quietly re-draws the map of the AI century.1

THE EVENT

Pax Silica is the US State Department's flagship effort on artificial-intelligence and supply-chain security: a coalition binding the countries that hold the physical prerequisites of the AI age — minerals, fabs, lithography, energy, capital, and ports — into a single trusted stack. Announced 11 December 2025, it held its inaugural summit in Washington on 12 December 2025.12

Its architect is Jacob Helberg, US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs — the declaration's chief draftsman and, increasingly, its travelling salesman.

The language is deliberate. The pact calls itself a positive-sum partnership to reduce coercive dependencies; Helberg says it stands for the rejection of weaponized dependency — the conversion of supply-chain leverage into geopolitical force.

THE NAME

PAXLAT. — peace · stability · an order kept by a hegemon
SILICASiO₂ — common sand, refined into silicon, the substrate of every chip

The name reaches back across two thousand years of imposed peaces: Pax Romana kept by legions, Pax Britannica by the Royal Navy, Pax Americana by carriers and the dollar. Pax Silica proposes that the next order will be kept by whoever governs compute — and the minerals that feed it.

READ THE DECLARATION LIKE A SIGNAL ANALYST

Count what the text actually talks about. It is not, at heart, a chip pact.

The declaration pledges to secure the strategic stacks of the global technology supply chain, including, but not limited to critical minerals, energy, refining, manufacturing, semiconductors, compute, data centers, fiber, and logistics. Including, but not limited to is doing heavy lifting: the frame is the whole stack — AI is the declared prize; chips are one layer of eight.

DOSSIER 02 // FULL-STACK, LITERALLY

THE STACK

Eight layers sit between a grain of sand and a working AI. Each is a potential chokepoint; each has a current landlord. Open every layer.

  1. What it is: nickel, cobalt, copper, lithium, rare earths, gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony — the elemental inputs of everything above.

    Why it chokes: ore bodies are fixed by geology; opening a new mine takes a decade or more. You cannot code your way around a missing deposit.

    CURRENT CONTROL — extraction is dispersed (Australia, Chile, Philippines, Kazakhstan), but buyers of last resort cluster in one place: roughly 80% of Philippine ore sails to China.

  2. What it is: the electricity and fuel that refining, fabs, and data centers drink in industrial quantities.

    Why it chokes: an AI data center is a power plant run in reverse. No cheap, firm energy, no compute — full stop.

    CURRENT CONTROL — the Gulf states (UAE, Qatar) pair sovereign capital with energy abundance, buying their way into the compute tier.

  3. What it is: turning ore into battery-grade, wafer-grade, magnet-grade material — the unglamorous chemistry between the pit and the factory.

    Why it chokes: China refines roughly 90% of the world's rare earths and over 70% of processing for the most strategic minerals. Export licenses here are foreign policy by other means — Beijing has already gated gallium, germanium, antimony, and graphite.11

    CURRENT CONTROL — this is the layer the entire pact is designed to contest. The Philippines' midstream bet aims straight at it.

  4. What it is: the machines that make the machines — lithography systems, deposition and etch tools, photoresists, specialty chemicals, precision optics.

    Why it chokes: one company — ASML in the Netherlands — holds a monopoly on the EUV lithography machines without which no leading-edge chip exists. Japan dominates upstream chemicals and much of the equipment bench.

    CURRENT CONTROL — firmly allied hands: the Netherlands, Japan, the United States. The pact's “Iron Triangle” starts here.

  5. What it is: the chips themselves — logic, memory, power, sensors — plus the back-end assembly, testing, and packaging (ATP) that turns wafers into products.

    Why it chokes: leading-edge logic concentrates in Taiwan and Korea; memory in Korea. ATP is dispersed — and here the Philippines is already a veteran, with semiconductors at over half of merchandise exports.7

    CURRENT CONTROL — Korea's memory fabs sit inside the pact; Taiwan attends as a guest contributor; the Philippines holds the back end.

  6. What it is: GPU/accelerator clusters, training runs, models — the layer where “artificial intelligence” actually happens.

    Why it chokes: top-end accelerators are American-designed and export-licensed. Because they degrade and must be replaced every few years, Washington holds what EE Times calls a de facto kill switch over foreign compute.15

    CURRENT CONTROL — the United States. “Concierge” access to the American AI stack is one of the pact's core perks.

  7. What it is: the buildings, cooling, and fiber-optic connectivity where compute lives — and the cables that move its output across oceans.

    Why it chokes: data centers eat power, water, and land; cables land where geopolitics allows. Singapore's connectivity and finance made it Southeast Asia's first signatory.

    CURRENT CONTROL — hubs concentrate in the US, Singapore, and the Gulf; the Philippines' Golden Node wants a seat at this table.

  8. What it is: shipping lanes, ports, canals, and the customs regimes that decide how fast trusted cargo moves.

    Why it chokes: a chip that can't clear a canal is inventory, not product. The pact's PaxPass pilot — expedited trusted-cargo verification through Panama, backed by $50M in US assistance — is logistics turned into alliance policy.1

    CURRENT CONTROL — chokepoints are geographic (Panama, Malacca, Suez); the pact is building a fast lane for the trusted.

DOSSIER 03 // WHO IS INSIDE THE STACK

THE ALLIANCE

Nine founders in December 2025; twenty-four declaration signatories and a 35-nation AI statement by the second summit in June 2026. Membership is capability-based: every node fills a gap.11

THE IRON TRIANGLE

Analysts single out Japan – the Netherlands – South Korea as the pact's industrial core: upstream chemicals and equipment, the ASML lithography monopoly, and the memory fabs. Everything else in the coalition either feeds this triangle or buys from it.1118

ALLIES vs CLIENTS

Real Instituto Elcano's reading: Pax Silica separates allies — inside the stack, prioritized in a crisis — from clients, who can still buy chips, but transactionally and on Washington's terms. The tier you occupy matters more than the money you hold.12

THE KILL SWITCH

EE Times notes that AI accelerators degrade and must be replaced every few years — so even Gulf states that buy compute outright remain on a Washington-controlled refresh cycle. Ownership, in this stack, is a subscription.15

THE NEW MACHINERY — WHAT THE PACT ACTUALLY BUILDS

FUND

PAX SILICA FUND

0M USD → $1T+

A $250M US contribution seeding an investment consortium meant to catalyze more than $1 trillion in sovereign-wealth and private capital into the stack.1

LOGISTICS

PAXPASS

0M USD · PILOT: PANAMA

Expedited trusted-cargo verification and fast-tracking for high-value AI supply-chain goods — a fast lane through the canal, backed by $50M in US foreign assistance.1

WORKFORCE

FOUNDRY SCHOOL

w/ STANFORD

An advanced-manufacturing and AI-infrastructure workforce program built with Stanford — the pact's answer to the talent chokepoint, unveiled at the June 2026 summit.1

ACCESS

“CONCIERGE”

US AI STACK

Concierge services for signatories acquiring American AI products — procurement as a diplomatic privilege, reserved for those inside the stack.1

DOSSIER 04 // THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE

WHY NOW

Three decades of just-in-time globalization concentrated the chain in East Asia for efficiency. The 2020s discovered that concentration is leverage — and leverage gets used.

0%

of the world's rare-earth refining happens in China

0%+

of processing for the most strategic minerals is Chinese-controlled

0

strategic materials already placed under Chinese export controls in retaliation: Ga · Ge · Sb · C — gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite

THE WEAPONIZATION, DATED

  • November 2025 — a fragile Trump–Xi trade truce papers over the supply-chain war.
  • 11–12 December 2025 — Pax Silica launches. The truce effectively ends.11
  • Retaliation follows — export controls on gallium, germanium, antimony, and graphite; Beijing expands its Unreliable Entity List to US-linked companies inside the coalition's supply chains.

The pact's own vocabulary is a mirror of the diagnosis: coercive dependencies to be reduced, weaponized dependency to be rejected. The premise is that the open ocean of global trade — go anywhere, buy from the cheapest — is over.

THE METAPHOR THAT LANDS

Pax Silica is the bet that a coalition can build its own system of locks — trusted lanes, trusted cargo, trusted compute — before the other system's gates close on them. Whether that is resilience or blockade depends on which harbor you sail from.

DOSSIER 05 // THE PHILIPPINE CHAPTER — CENTERPIECE

GOLDEN NODE

On 16 April 2026 the Philippines signed the Pax Silica declaration as member №13 — one of only two Southeast Asian signatories, alongside Singapore. Four days later the BCDA announced the deliverable: a 4,000-acre Economic Security Zone inside New Clark City, Tarlac — the pact's first “AI-native industrial acceleration hub.” They named it the Golden Node.359

0

ACRES — the Economic Security Zone (≈ 1,618 hectares) between the New Clark City Sports Hub and Clark International Airport5

№0

signatory of the declaration — signed 16 April 2026, one of two in Southeast Asia

#0

first AI-native industrial acceleration hub under Pax Silica — and host of the first Pax Silica Coordination Office

0

target: groundbreaking and operational rollout before end of 2028 TARGET

SCHEMATIC A — THE ZONE · NEW CLARK CITY, TARLAC 15.34°N 120.53°E

SCTEX / TPLEX ACCESS CLARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT CRK · CARGO GATEWAY NEW CLARK CITY SPORTS HUB ATHLETICS STADIUM · AQUATICS ECONOMIC SECURITY ZONE · “GOLDEN NODE” 4,000 ACRES / ≈1,618 HA · BCDA-ADMINISTERED · CLARK SEZ · LUZON ECONOMIC CORRIDOR WATER, CONTESTED — SEE DOSSIER 06

SCHEMATIC B — THE LUZON ECONOMIC CORRIDOR SUBIC → CLARK → MANILA → BATANGAS

WEST PHILIPPINE SEA ———— LUZON ———— PACIFIC APPROACH SUBIC BAYDEEPWATER PORT · FORMER US NAVAL BASE CLARK · GOLDEN NODEAIRPORT + 4,000-ACRE ESZ MANILACAPITAL MARKETS · PORT OF MANILA BATANGASINDUSTRIAL PORT · LNG 80% OF PHILIPPINE PORT TRAFFIC MOVES ALONG THIS AXIS — — 250 KM FREIGHT RAILWAY · GROUNDBREAKING TARGETED 2027 TARGET · $3.8M USTDA GRANT

THE MINERAL ARGUMENT — A TRILLION DOLLARS UNDERFOOT

$0T

estimated untapped reserves — copper, gold, nickel, zinc, silver — in the 5th most mineralized country on Earth4

#0

largest nickel producer in the world — and the largest nickel-ore exporter since Indonesia's 2020 raw-ore ban

0%

of Philippine ore currently ships to China for refining — where the value is captured

0% / 0%

of reserves explored / under mining contracts as of 2024. Tampakan copper waits in South Cotabato; high-purity silica and quartz extraction is set to grow in Zambales and Tarlac.

THE VALUE LEAK, TODAY

DTI Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo states the goal plainly: keep critical minerals in the Philippines rather than exporting them raw.7 The midstream play attacks precisely the stage — refining and processing — where Beijing's advantage is deepest.

THE ELECTRONICS BASE — ALREADY THE BACK END OF THE INDUSTRY

SEMICONDUCTOR EXPORTS, USD BILLIONS

2024: 53.4% OF ALL MERCHANDISE EXPORTS — CONCENTRATED IN ASSEMBLY, TEST & PACKAGING (ATP)7

Semiconductors have carried the Philippine export economy for years — consistently over half of merchandise exports — but almost entirely at the back end: assembly, testing, packaging. The country sells the labor-intensive chapter of the chip story and imports the high-margin chapters.

Pax Silica's pitch is a third economic pillar — critical minerals plus advanced manufacturing — alongside IT-BPM and electronics, making the Philippines one of the few partners with depth across services, manufacturing, and minerals in a single economy. The stated ambition ladder: mineral processing (nickel, cobalt, copper) → ATP expansion → IC design → eventually wafer fabrication.

  • February 2026 — US–PH critical minerals framework signed.3
  • 18 May 2026 — Helberg walks the New Clark City site with BCDA chief Joshua Bingcang and DTI Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo, alongside the World Bank and US tech firms.9

THE DEAL MECHANICS — WHO PUTS WHAT ON THE TABLE

GOVERNANCE

“JOINT GOVERNANCE”

The zone is to be governed through US–PH joint governance; the US Embassy describes the arrangement as sovereign alignment and shared upside. The detailed charter has not been published — a gap critics return to in Dossier 06.2

IN-KIND

TWO-YEAR LEASE GRACE

BCDA proposed a two-year grace period on lease payments as the Philippines' unconditional in-kind contribution to the hub.5

INCENTIVES

RA 12066 · 7916 · 7227

Fiscal incentives stack under RA 12066 (CREATE MORE), RA 7916 (Special Economic Zone Act), and RA 7227 (the BCDA Charter) — tax holidays, duty exemptions, conversion authority.5

INSTITUTIONS

THE INSTITUTIONAL STACK

BCDA · DTI · BOI on the Philippine side; US State Department and DFC (de-risking, political-risk insurance) on the American side; ADB technical assistance and the World Bank Group in support.9

PRIVATE ANCHORS

SONY · SAMSUNG · ASML · DEEPMIND

Named players in Pax Silica supply chains circling the network — the occupiers the zone is being built to attract.1

PAPER

FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT

A bilateral framework agreement on land use is targeted for signature around November 2026 TARGET; grounding and rollout before end of 2028 TARGET.3

DOSSIER 06 // TWO CHANNELS, NO VERDICT

THE STAKES

This pact is genuinely contested in the Philippines — in Congress, in the streets, in the press. Below: both channels, in their own voices. Switch the lens; hold both at once. This briefing renders no verdict.

CHANNEL A — THE BULL CASE ● LIVE

“By joining Pax Silica, the Philippines is ensuring that our mineral resources and strategic location are not simply supporting global industries from the margins, but are actively harnessed to build the industries of the future.”
Frederick Go — Finance Secretary, who calls the pact a “generational” opportunity3
“The goal is to keep critical minerals in the Philippines rather than exporting them raw.”
Ceferino Rodolfo — DTI Undersecretary. The midstream refining play attacks the exact stage where Beijing's advantage is deepest — the ~90% rare-earth, 70%+ processing chokepoint.7
“More quality job opportunities for Filipinos and greater participation of local enterprises in the growing innovation-driven economy.”
Joshua Bingcang — BCDA President & CEO, on what the Golden Node is meant to deliver10
Deeper integration into global supply chains — moving the electronics sector up from the back end it has occupied for decades.
Dan Lachica — Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI)7
Assurances of transparency and safeguards for the national interest.
Malacañang — defending the initiative, July 20269

THE ANALYTICAL VERSION

The Philippines today exports ore and imports margin: ~80% of ore is refined in China; the electronics sector is trapped at assembly-test-packaging wages. A trusted midstream — refining plus ATP plus eventually design — is precisely the rung of the ladder the country has never held, and it arrives with US de-risking capital, ADB technical assistance, and guaranteed demand from inside the stack. Few countries are offered a seat; the Philippines was offered a flagship.

CHANNEL B — THE BEAR CASE ● LIVE

“A massive sellout” — locking the Philippines into raw-material exports and low-value labor while technology, control, and profit remain abroad.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) — which also warns of land conversion displacing rice and coconut agriculture, expanded mining in ecologically degraded provinces, and the toxic legacy of the former US bases at Subic and Clark17
The initiative preserves foreign control and deepens dependency on foreign technology and capital — the country remains a supplier of cheap labor.
Ibon Foundation17
“The Philippines will be part of a long supply chain where it keeps only an insignificantly small part of the profits and benefits to production. There is no genuine proclamation of developing and manufacturing long-term actual innovations for Filipinos.”
Computer Professionals Union17
Subordination to US strategic priorities — and a demand for full transparency on terms the public has not seen.
Makabayan bloc — which also warns that industrial zones integrated with US–PH military cooperation risk making civilian areas strategic targets in a conflict17
The hub would produce chips for missiles, drones, and military hardware.
Coalition of scientists and environmentalists — 13 July 202617
The site sits on contested land, threatening livelihoods and scarce water supplies.
South China Morning Post — reporting from Tarlac, July 20268

THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Data centers drink electricity, cooling water, and land — who meters the aquifer under Tarlac, and whose health bears the load? What exactly does joint governance mean when no charter has been published? And what does history say: the old US bases left contamination at Subic and Clark that took decades to even inventory. The bear case is not that the Philippines gains nothing — it is that the country has signed the deed before reading it.

BOTH CHANNELS ARE REAL. BOTH ARE ON THE RECORD. THE READER KEEPS THE VERDICT.

DOSSIER 07 // CONFIRMED vs TARGET

THE ROAD AHEAD

Scrub the track. Solid markers are events that happened; hollow markers are announced targets — intentions, not facts.

—

SCRUB THE TIMELINE

Drag the scrubber or tap any marker.

  1. 11–12 DEC 2025 · CONFIRMED

    Founding summit, Washington

    Pax Silica announced and launched; nine founding signatories put their names to the declaration.

  2. FEB 2026 · CONFIRMED

    India joins · US–PH minerals framework

    India signs at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi; Washington and Manila sign a critical minerals framework — the Philippine on-ramp.14

  3. 16 APR 2026 · CONFIRMED

    The Philippines signs — member №13

    One of two Southeast Asian signatories alongside Singapore.3

  4. 20 APR 2026 · CONFIRMED

    BCDA allocates 4,000 acres

    The Economic Security Zone at New Clark City is announced — the Golden Node gets its coordinates.5

  5. 18 MAY 2026 · CONFIRMED

    Helberg walks the site

    Site inspection at New Clark City with Bingcang, Rodolfo, the World Bank, and US tech firms.9

  6. 25–26 JUN 2026 · CONFIRMED

    Second summit — the pact widens

    Declaration signatories reach 24; PaxPass and the Foundry School unveiled; 35 nations sign the Joint Statement on AI Opportunity.1

  7. JUL 2026 · CONFIRMED

    The argument goes public

    Malacañang defends the initiative; scientists, environmentalists, and the Makabayan bloc escalate their opposition; SCMP reports contested land and water at the Tarlac site.8

  8. ~NOV 2026 · TARGET

    Bilateral framework agreement

    US–PH framework agreement on land use targeted for signature — the legal skeleton of joint governance.

  9. 2027 · TARGET

    Luzon corridor rail groundbreaking

    The 250-kilometre freight railway linking the axis is scheduled to break ground.

  10. BEFORE END-2028 · TARGET

    Golden Node groundbreaking & rollout

    Grounding and operational rollout of the zone — the date on which every promise in this dossier becomes testable.

DOSSIER 08 // VOCABULARY + PROVENANCE

GLOSSARY + SOURCE INDEX

The vocabulary of the new silicon order — and the reporting this briefing is built on. Every claim above traces to the fact set or to one of these sources.

GOLDEN NODE
The 4,000-acre Economic Security Zone at New Clark City, Tarlac — the first “AI-native industrial acceleration hub” designated under Pax Silica.
ECONOMIC SECURITY ZONE (ESZ)
A BCDA-administered industrial district inside the Clark Special Economic Zone, framed around supply-chain security rather than ordinary export processing.
ATP
Assembly, testing, and packaging — the back end of semiconductor manufacturing, and the Philippines' existing stronghold in the chip chain.
LUZON ECONOMIC CORRIDOR
The Subic–Clark–Manila–Batangas development axis launched April 2024 by the PH, US, and Japan under the G7 PGII; carries ~80% of Philippine port traffic.
PAXPASS
Expedited trusted-cargo verification and fast-tracking for high-value AI supply-chain goods, piloted through Panama with $50M in US assistance.
COERCIVE DEPENDENCY
A supply-chain reliance that gives the supplier political leverage over the buyer — the condition the declaration pledges to reduce.
WEAPONIZED DEPENDENCY
The active use of that leverage — export controls, entity lists — as an instrument of state power. Helberg: Pax Silica rejects it.
FULL-STACK
All eight layers at once: minerals, energy, refining, manufacturing, semiconductors, compute, data centers and fiber, logistics.
CONCIERGE ACCESS
Priority procurement services for signatories acquiring American AI products — the membership perk of being inside the stack.
IT-BPM
Information technology and business process management — the services pillar of the Philippine economy, alongside electronics and, now, the minerals bet.

SOURCE INDEX — CITED ABOVE AS n

  1. US Department of State — Pax Silica declaration text; inaugural summit (Dec 2025) and second summit (Jun 2026) releases; Pax Silica Fund, PaxPass, Foundry School, concierge access; Helberg remarks.
  2. US Embassy in the Philippines — Golden Node designation; “sovereign alignment and shared upside”; joint-governance language; Helberg site statements.
  3. Rappler — Philippine accession as 13th signatory (16 Apr 2026); Finance Secretary Go's “generational” framing; framework-agreement timeline.
  4. GMA News Online — mineral endowment figures; fifth-most-mineralized ranking; $1T untapped-reserve estimate.
  5. Manila Bulletin — BCDA's 4,000-acre New Clark City allocation (20 Apr 2026); two-year lease grace proposal; RA 12066/7916/7227 incentive stack.
  6. Philstar — Luzon Economic Corridor coverage; Subic–Clark–Manila–Batangas axis; 250-km freight rail; USTDA grant.
  7. BusinessWorld — semiconductor export series ($46.0B / $41.9B / $39.1B; 53.4% of 2024 exports); Rodolfo on keeping minerals in-country; SEIPI's Lachica.
  8. South China Morning Post — contested land, displaced livelihoods, and scarce water around the Tarlac site (Jul 2026).
  9. Philippine Information Agency (PIA) — official releases on the 18 May 2026 site inspection; institutional stack; Malacañang's July 2026 defense.
  10. BCDA — corporate statements; President Joshua Bingcang on quality jobs and local enterprise participation.
  11. Atlantic Council — capability-based membership analysis; the Iron Triangle frame; China retaliation and the end of the November 2025 truce.
  12. Real Instituto Elcano — allies-inside-the-stack vs clients-on-Washington's-terms framing.
  13. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — analysis of economic-security coalitions and AI supply-chain statecraft.
  14. Takshashila Institution — India's February 2026 accession and the New Delhi AI Impact Summit context.
  15. EE Times — accelerator refresh cycles and the de facto “kill switch” over Gulf compute.
  16. The National — Gulf participation; UAE and Qatar accession context; energy-and-capital tier.
  17. FactCheckPH / Philippine civic-society record — KMP, Ibon Foundation, Computer Professionals Union, and Makabayan bloc statements; 13 July 2026 scientists' and environmentalists' coalition warning.
  18. CISES — industrial-policy analysis of the pact's semiconductor core.
  19. Avasant — industry analysis of AI-infrastructure supply chains and outsourcing-market implications.
  20. Digital Policy Alert — tracking of export-control measures (gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite) and countermeasures.