NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 18, 2026 / As demand for rare earth elements and critical minerals accelerates beyond the influence of politics, tariffs, and geographic boundaries, SMX (Security Matters) PLC (NASDAQ: SMX) is establishing a new standard for trust, authentication, and transparency across global supply chains.

These materials underpin the technologies shaping today's economy-from electric vehicles and renewable energy systems to semiconductors, aerospace innovation, and advanced defense platforms. With global competition intensifying, the ability to confidently verify origin, integrity, and movement has become essential to both industry and investment.

SMX delivers that assurance by enabling materials to carry a persistent, verifiable identity throughout their lifecycle. Its traceability platform allows rare earth elements and critical minerals to be authenticated at every stage of production and distribution-protecting supply chains while safeguarding the significant capital tied to their extraction, processing, and commercialization.

Elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are indispensable to high-performance applications, including EV motors, wind turbines, and advanced electronics. As reliance on these materials grows, so does the urgency to ensure their provenance and maintain their integrity across increasingly complex supply networks.

Those networks are often fragmented and multi-layered. Materials can pass through numerous stages-mining, chemical separation, refining, alloy creation, magnet manufacturing, and final integration-frequently spanning multiple countries and regulatory regimes. This complexity introduces exposure to substitution, mislabeling, compliance risks, and sanctions-related challenges.

SMX addresses these vulnerabilities by embedding microscopic markers directly into physical materials. These markers remain with the material as it moves through each phase, creating a continuous, tamper-resistant identity that can be detected and authenticated at any point along the supply chain.

Through its physical-to-digital platform, SMX connects these embedded markers to a secure verification infrastructure, generating a fully auditable record of a material's journey. This enables stakeholders to confirm origin, validate authenticity, and maintain transparent documentation as materials move through global markets.

For industries that depend on these resources-including renewable energy, electric vehicles, semiconductors, aerospace, and defense-this level of traceability provides a critical layer of operational certainty and investment protection.

At the same time, governments around the world are intensifying efforts to secure access to critical minerals as part of broader economic and national security strategies. As regulatory expectations evolve and transparency mandates expand, technologies capable of verifying origin and chain of custody are becoming foundational to compliance and accountability.

SMX's platform is designed to preserve identity even as materials undergo transformation through multiple industrial processes. From refining and alloy production to magnet fabrication and final product integration, each material retains a consistent, verifiable fingerprint across its entire lifecycle.

While the solution is highly relevant to rare earth elements, its applications extend across a broader spectrum of strategic materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper-resources central to the global energy transition and advanced manufacturing ecosystems.

In a world where critical materials move faster than borders can define, SMX provides the infrastructure of trust-strengthening transparency, reinforcing accountability, and protecting the supply chains that power the modern economy.

Contact: Jeremy Murphy/ jeremy@360bespoke.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited