The world this wiki

The idea of LLM Wiki applied to a year of the Economist. Have an LLM keep a wiki up-to-date about companies, people & countries while reading through all articles of the economist from Q2 2025 until Q2 2026.
companies|Smelt of success

Boston Metal

American green-steelmaking startup based in Woburn, Massachusetts. Its process uses molten oxide electrolysis: iron ore is dissolved in a molten mixture of other metal oxides at temperatures above 1,538°C and an electric current is passed through the mix. Pure liquid iron sinks to the bottom of the reaction vessel while impurities remain dissolved in the molten oxides as slag.

The process had worked in a laboratory, but scaling up has proved difficult. In early 2026 the firm disclosed "a critical equipment failure" at a facility in Brazil that was applying the technology to niobium, a high-value metal. Boston Metal subsequently cut back its operation in Woburn (though the site was not closed). Its boss is Tadeu Carneiro.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson