The biggest energy transition in history is well and truly underway, and nowhere is the shift more readily apparent than in the transport industry. Wall Street is almost unanimous that electric vehicles are the future of the industry, with EV sales already outpacing ICE sales in markets such as Norway. That kind of exponential growth can only mean one thing: Explosive demand for the metals that go into those batteries. Demand for battery metals is projected to soar as the transport industry continues to electrify at a record pace. In fact, there's a real danger that current mining technologies might struggle to keep up with the demand for battery metals in the near future. Thankfully, Artificial intelligence (AI) can not only be deployed to help improve the way these crucial elements are mined but can replace them altogether.

There's a good chance your smartphone contains tainted cobalt. The metal is a crucial ingredient in most of the lithium-ion batteries that power our devices, and 70% of it is mined in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where children are often deployed to work in toxic environments. Though global brands like Apple and Samsung are keen to clean up their supply chain, DRC's dominance of the cobalt market makes the task difficult. These brands are also pressured by growing demand for cobalt, which Citigroup estimates will outstrip supply by 2023. That's because lithium-ion batteries also power electric cars, and every car battery needs as much as 1,000 times the amount of cobalt of a smartphone battery.