Mining vs AI: What’s wrong with this picture?

As the saying from mid-19th century California goes, during a gold rush the easiest way to get rich is selling shovels and picks. 

Never has this old business school adage been truer than for NVIDIA. The California-based company’s market worth has skyrocketed as companies rush to buy its graphics processors to power artificial intelligence projects. 

Nevertheless, it’s a jarring to see the companies doing the actual shovelling be appraised by the market in such a contrasting way. The MINING.COM ranking of the 50 most valuable mining companies shows a combined value of $1.4 trillion at the end of the second quarter, not even half that of NVIDIA.    

There is another maxim from the mining industry: If it can’t be grown it has to be mined. 

Looking at this chart, that’s clearly not something often mentioned in investment circles.