BHP Works With Microsoft And AI To Boost Recovery At A Leading Copper Mine

The world’s largest copper mine, the Escondida mine in Chile, is being improved by a partnership between BHP Group and Microsoft Corp. utilising machine learning and artificial intelligence, the company announced on Tuesday.

According to BHP, the world will need to generate twice as much copper over the next 30 years to keep up with the growth of decarbonization technologies like electric cars, offshore wind farms, and solar farms.

Miners are seeking next-generation technology to extract more metal from current mines and processes because finding and developing new mines is expensive, challenging, and can take upwards of ten years. According to a statement from the firm, BHP Chief Technical Officer Laura Tyler predicted that the enhanced usage of digital technologies would bring about the next major mining revolution.

Plant operators will be able to change factors that affect ore processing and grade recovery using real-time data from ore-processing facilities combined with AI-based recommendations from Microsoft’s Azure platform, according to BHP.

The principal owner of Escondida is BHP, the largest miner in the world, which also operates the mine with partners Rio Tinto and JECO Corp. of Japan. Over 1 million metric tonnes of copper were produced in Escondida during the most recent fiscal year, which ended in June.