Commodity prices turn on a nickel — a metal, incidentally, worth three-fifths what it was a year ago. This is a sector both cyclical and in hock to all sorts of prevailing winds: geopolitical, economic, technological and Mother Nature herself. Is it time to turn price discovery over to artificial intelligence?
The US thinks so, at least when it comes to critical minerals such as nickel, lithium and a swath of the periodic table. The Department of Defense wants to use AI to plot the supply and demand of critical minerals and shine a light on what it sees as the current opaque pricing.
To this end, it has charged the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) with spurring tech advances “to enable a more reliable signal for buyers, sellers and investors than is currently available”. Access for retail investors is unconfirmed, with the project recently put out to tender. But it could be a useful tool for those with commodities exchange traded funds.