The inimitable Patrick Boyle had this to say recently about rare earths:

“. . . which are used in basically everything from vacuum cleaners to fighter jets, but, mostly vacuum cleaners . . .”

Strategic minerals like the lanthanide series on the periodic table (the so-called rare earths) are indeed used in strategic things like weapons and satellites and submarines and such. But that means they are also used in washing machines and automobiles and laptops and all the rest of our tech goodies. Fancy steels and fancy circuit boards and other fancy things need fancy materials.

Gadolinium (Gd) is used in MRIs, nuclear reactors, phosphors, alloys, fuel cells, semiconductors, and other specialized applications. Worldwide production is about 500 tonnes annually.