Earlier this week, Intel announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it’s getting serious about mineral sourcing. Where companies get the ingredients for our chips and our devices is kind of a dirty open secret. And until the creation of new materials, it will stay that way. But the world’s largest chip maker is promising all of the microprocessors it ships this year will be free of “conflict minerals.”

“We’re focused primarily, or solely, on the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the human rights atrocities that have been taking place in that region for years,” Dr. Carolyn Duran, director of Intel’s ‘conflict minerals’ program. “There are many warring factions in that region and many of them use funds from the sale of minerals in that region to fund these atrocities.”

To hear the entire interview with Dr. Duran, click the audio player above.