Although tantalum was discovered in the early 19th century, it was not until 1903 that the metal tantalum was produced, and industrial production of tantalum began in 1922. Therefore, the development of the world's tantalum industry began in the 1920s, and China's tantalum industry began in 1956.

The United States was the first country in the world to start producing tantalum. In 1922, industrial-scale production of metal tantalum began. Japan and other capitalist countries started to develop tantalum industry in the late 1950s or early 1960s. After decades of development, the world's tantalum industrial production has reached a very high level. Since the 1990s, the relatively large-scale tantalum product manufacturers include Cabot Group in the United States (Cabot in the United States, Cabot in Showa in Japan), HCST Group in Germany (HCST in Germany, NRC in the United States, V-Tech in Japan, TTA in Thailand) and Ningxia Oriental Tantalum in China The three major groups of the company, the tantalum products produced by these three groups account for more than 80% of the world's total. The products, process technology, and equipment of the foreign tantalum industry are generally very high, adapting to the needs of the world's rapid development of science and technology.

China's tantalum industry began in the 1960s. China's initial tantalum smelting, processing and production scale, technical level, product grade and quality status are far from those of developed countries. Since the 1990s, especially since 1995, China's tantalum production and application have shown a trend of rapid development. Today, China's tantalum industry has realized the transformation of "from small to large, from military to civilian, and from inside to outside", forming the world's only one. The industrial system from mining, smelting, processing to application, high, medium and low-end products have entered the international market in an all-round way. China has become the world's third-strongest country in tantalum smelting and processing, and has entered the ranks of the world's largest tantalum industry