No doubt about it — gold is a favourite metal.
The glitter, the glamour, the history … and, frankly, the juicy potential mining profits.
Gold is, quite rightly, the go-to metal for natural resource investors.
Perhaps a little bit too much sometimes.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics exploration data revealed that gold is the clear leader, and it’s been that way over the complete seven years of the latest data series.
Gold is the easiest metal to mine. The market is understood and trusted, and Aussie investors have a strong affinity with gold in general.
The gold price enjoyed a strong rally over 2024 and 2025.
As it happens, gold mine output hit a record in 2025. Anyone who wants gold can certainly buy some. The only question is the price.
There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with this … investors can fund or buy whatever pleases them.
Except the industrial — and AI — economy doesn’t NEED gold.
Compare this to critical minerals.
Smaller metals usually receive less investor attention, and therefore less investor dollars.
That cuts down the amount of supply created for future demand.
These are much more obscure than gold, but more vital to economic growth.
That’s a problem in the Age of AI
Look at the chart below.
This shows the gargantuan spending that US hyperscale companies are currently doing, and how it turns into cash flow for the chip makers.
These are extraordinary numbers. This is a historic moment.
It’s also one the mining industry did not expect.
Nobody in the critical mineral space expected the semiconductor industry to go into hyperdrive five years ago. ChatGPT only came to public access in 2022.
Critical mineral developers are now short on time to prepare. In fact, arguably, it’s already too late.
This dynamic could become a problem sooner rather than later.
MooMoo recently reported on what it calls “computing power metals”. See the important part here:
“Tin, tantalum, and indium are most closely tied to the AI computing‑power industry.
“According to multiple market data sources, the price of tin has risen from RMB 300,000 [$63,868] per ton in November last year to around RMB 400,000 per ton today, marking a cumulative increase of 40% over the past six months.
“Tantalum ingot prices have surged by as much as 158% since the end of last year; and indium prices have climbed roughly 60% from the start of the year through mid‑June.”
This is already playing out on the ASX in different ways
Australia’s only listed pure tin producer, Metals X (ASX:MLX), went from around $0.45 per share in July 2024 to as high as $1.77 per share in May 2026.
That’s an increase of 293%.
Naturally, investors got the message.
They have also been bidding strongly on tin developer Elementos (ASX:ELT).
Its share price is up 265% over the last year, and it’s not even producing yet.
ELT has also attracted a strategic investment from storied, high-conviction fund manager L1 Capital.
Tech Wire Asia recently reported:
“Every conversation about what AI needs eventually lands on the same shortlist: GPUs, power, cooling, and land. Tin rarely makes the cut. Yet without it, the servers that run AI workloads cannot be built. It is the metal that holds everything together, literally, and its supply picture is getting complicated fast.”
Indium is another important metal for AI. That’s why the EU and US classify it as a critical mineral.
Here’s the catch: it’s usually produced as a by-product to another metal.
That’s less than ideal. It means the other metal must have sufficient commercial value to support the project, otherwise indium supply will wither away if the operation is not running at full capacity.
Governing bodies aren’t oblivious to this.
Last year the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) played a funding role for ASX indium developer Iltani Resources (ASX:ILT).
Iltani has the Orient Silver-Indium Project in North Queensland. This is mineral-rich territory. ILT says that mining for different metals goes back as far as 1880!
In May, ILT updated the market that it was actively drilling its exploration targets.
Managing Director Donald Garner told the market on 11 June:
“With this high level of activity and about two more months of drilling to complete, we expect to have results flowing through the coming months as we work to fill the gap between Orient East and West, extend mineralisation along strike, and improve grades and confidence.”
AI aficionados and enthusiasts should take note.
Thank the Strait of Hormuz now for boosting tantalum supply later
Another obscure but critical mineral is tantalum. It is primarily used in capacitors. AI chips and circuit boards need it to regulate power and electrical noise.
Tantalum is similar to indium in that it usually is a by-product of another metal. In Australia, that is often lithium.
It just so happens that the recent conflict around the Strait of Hormuz is causing a global switch toward renewable energy and non-fossil fuel alternatives as a security measure as well as an environmental one.
That’s good for lithium and tantalum production.
Currently, 65% of tantalum supply comes out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.
The tantalum price is up big in 2026 too.
PMET Resources (ASX:PMET) has one of North America’s largest lithium deposits in Eastern Canada.
It expects tantalum demand to double in the next 10 years.
The company says that it’s “an extremely rare type of Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatite deposit — that has concentrated all three of the LCT components at scale and grade, for critical minerals that are in high demand.”
That said, PMET won’t be in production for years.
The world needs tantalum now.
All this is creating an exciting dynamic for Australia’s junior resource companies to build the mines of the future. And some Australian investors will no doubt have the potential to profit over the journey as well.
Write to Callum Newman at Mining.com.au
Images: Iltani Resources, ABS, Porter & Co, Market Index & PLS Group
