Do you live in a Smart Home? Can you control your lighting, heating, and electronic devices with nothing more than a smartphone? It's no secret that demand for smart homes and devices has gone from novelty to necessity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants like Siri and Alexa have exploded in popularity and have been accepted into millions of homes. Many consumers have come to not only accept the help of these devices but have come to rely upon them. Can you even begin to imagine life today without social media, smartphones, or GPS systems?

We have enough problems these days. The last thing we need to worry about is our health or the high costs of care. That's why many people are turning to digital health solutions. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, many of these solutions can reportedly help manage diabetes, improve sleep, monitor heart health, encourage weight loss, track whether patients are sticking to physical therapy regimens, and more.(3) Due to the recent health scare, governments and healthcare systems worldwide may now realize how essential digital health has become.

After all, mined minerals have become essential for your cell phones, electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, your computers, you name it. Plus, with a growing population, urbanization, demand for green energy, buildings, cars, and even more electronic gadgets, we could very well see an increased need for metals. What could make mining even more valuable, though, is that we already seem to be coming up short on essential metals, like copper, silver, platinum, palladium, nickel, cobalt, and rhodium. Goldman Sachs, for one, appeared to warn of a looming shortage of copper.(2) Also, "Fitch Ratings has revised some of its metals and mining price assumptions as prices for many commodities will benefit in the short term from returning demand while the supply response remains slow and inventories are running low," the company said in a report.(3)