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What’s happening? AfricaMuseum in Tervuren holds nearly 500 metres of colonial-era geological archives detailing the mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Kinshasa wants US-based KoBold Metals — backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — to digitise the records for AI-powered mineral exploration. Belgium has refused to grant exclusive access, arguing that public federal archives cannot be privatised. An EU-backed digitisation effort is already in progress.
A diplomatic dispute between Brussels and Kinshasa has reignited long-standing tensions over colonial legacy, resource sovereignty and control of strategic data. At its centre: a vast geological archive housed in the AfricaMuseum, originally built under Leopold II.
The museum’s collection includes detailed surveys, maps and borehole data compiled by Belgian geologists during 75 years of colonial rule in Congo. In practical terms, the archive functions as a highly detailed blueprint of some of the world’s most valuable mineral reserves — including cobalt, lithium and copper.
A Deal in Kinshasa — and a Block in Brussels
In July 2025, the DRC government signed a framework agreement with KoBold Metals in Kinshasa, in the presence of President Félix Tshisekedi. The agreement envisioned digitising the colonial-era geological records stored in Belgium, converting decades of paper documents into searchable digital datasets.
For KoBold, the rationale is straightforward. The company uses artificial intelligence to analyse geological information and identify high-potential mineral deposits. Feeding historic survey data into its AI models could significantly accelerate exploration in a country that already produces more than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt and holds vast untapped lithium reserves, including the massive Manono deposit.
But Belgian authorities have drawn a firm line.
Federal officials argue that while the archives are open to researchers and the public, they cannot grant exclusive access to a private foreign company with no contractual relationship with the Belgian state. Any digitisation effort, they insist, must follow a non-exclusive, scientific framework compliant with Belgian and EU regulations.
The AfricaMuseum has echoed that position, stating it is not party to the agreement signed in Kinshasa and cannot allow a private company to effectively privatise federal archives.
Colonial Records, Strategic Consequences
The disagreement reaches far beyond archival procedure. It intersects with three powerful forces shaping the global economy: the legacy of colonial extraction, the geopolitics of critical minerals, and the race to secure supply chains for the energy transition.
Congo’s mineral reserves — cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum — are central to global production of electric vehicles, renewable energy storage systems and consumer electronics. Much of the geological intelligence underpinning these resources was gathered between 1885 and 1960, then transported to Belgium along with cultural artefacts and administrative records.
The fact that this data remains in Brussels rather than Kinshasa reflects a deeper colonial inheritance. When Leopold II transferred the Congo Free State to the Belgian government in 1908, many administrative records were destroyed. The surviving materials were archived in Tervuren, where the museum built to showcase Belgium’s colonial enterprise still stands.
Unlike looted cultural objects — which have been the subject of restitution debates and Belgium’s 2022 restitution framework — geological archives were not included in repatriation efforts.
Belgium maintains that an EU-funded digitisation programme is already underway, with digital copies progressively shared with Congolese authorities. However, the pace of that initiative and the DRC’s decision to accelerate access via a private-sector partnership have exposed competing priorities: regulatory caution in Europe versus resource urgency in Kinshasa.
The Business Stakes
The dispute carries implications well beyond museum walls.
KoBold’s billion-dollar commitment in the DRC forms part of a broader Western push to diversify critical mineral supply chains and reduce dependence on Chinese-controlled processing. The United States and its allies see Congo as indispensable to that strategy.
If access to historical geological data is delayed, exploration timelines could slow — affecting future supply of the battery metals essential to decarbonisation efforts. The paradox is striking: European regulatory safeguards designed to ensure public access may also be limiting the speed at which strategic resources are developed.
For the DRC, the issue is not simply administrative. It touches on sovereignty and economic justice. The geological surveys were compiled under colonial rule, mapping resources that belong to the Congolese state. To many in Kinshasa, these archives represent economic intelligence extracted during colonialism — and still held abroad.
A Broader Question of Control
Belgium’s position is legally defensible: public archives cannot be granted exclusively to a private foreign firm. Yet the optics are complex. Belgium once extracted immense wealth from Congo while building institutions to catalogue its resources. Today, those catalogues remain in Belgian custody.
The AfricaMuseum has undergone significant renovation to confront its colonial history, incorporating critical perspectives and provenance research into its collections. But the debate over geological data highlights a deeper issue: decolonisation is not only about returning artefacts — it is about who controls information that shapes economic futures.
As capital increasingly flows toward securing critical minerals for the energy transition, control of the data underpinning those resources becomes strategically decisive.
The shelves in Tervuren are not simply historical archives. They are operational assets in the global competition for battery metals. And for now, Belgium retains control of the map.
