This tech startup is using AI to find rare minerals buried under the ice

While some may disagree about the true cause of climate change, everyone agrees that global warming is bad because of its disastrous ecological consequences and could lead to a dramatic transformation of our planet as we know it. There are also some unintended consequences of global warming.

As the Earth's temperature increases, it causes more snow and ice to melt each summer, which exposes the underlying precious minerals. An example of this can be found in Greenland, where more than 8 billion tons of ice melts per day for several days in July 2021, which exposed precious minerals buried under the ice. One tech startup did not let this crisis go to waste.

KoBold Metals is a California-based mineral exploration tech startup that uses artificial intelligence A to explore rare minerals buried beneath the Greenland ice to power electric vehicles and support the transition to renewable energy. Since its inception four years ago, KoBold Metals has attracted the interest of investors who are looking to take advantage of the opportunities with the hope of reaping the future windfall.

In February of this year, KoBold Metals raised $192.5 million in a Series B funding round backed by billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. The round was joined by new investors, including the Canada Pension Plan CPP Investment Board, Standard Investments, BHP Ventures, Mitsubishi, Sam Altman's Apollo Projects and Sarah Kunst's Cleo Capital.

KoBold Metals is focused on using AI to find metals such as Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, and Lithium, which are used in electric vehicle batteries, and is used by Jeff Jurinak, Josh Goldman, Kurt House, and Kurt Zenz House.

Replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles is a must to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The company said that in order to build batteries, the world needs all of the world's reserves of cobalt, nickel, copper, and lithium, plus another $10 trillion of new sources of these metals, an increase in demand of up to 40 x over the next 20 years.

A KoBold Metals spokesman said in an interview with Business Insider: "We are looking for a discovery that will be one of the largest, most significant nickel and cobalt deposits in the world, potentially powering 100 million EVs. KoBold has a team of 30 people, including geologists, geophysicists and pilots, exploring Disko Island and the Nuussuaq Peninsula, where the minerals and metals for batteries and electric vehicles are believed to be in the hills and valleys.

After CNN first reported the story in a video of the KoBold team's work in Greenland, the startup is working on exploration in partnership with Bluejay Mining.

The KoBold spokeswoman said that the global economy was the greatest challenge of our generation. Partnering with this broad set of world-class investors will accelerate our efforts to find the key materials for the EV revolution. The KoBold team in Greenland is planning to use AI to find areas for drilling in the next summer, according to CNN. The team is also taking soil samples and using drones and helicopters to look out the layers below the surface.

Bo Mller Stensgaard, CEO of Bluejay Mining, told CNN that it was a concern to see the consequences and impacts of climate changes in Greenland. Climate changes have made exploration and mining easier and more accessible in Greenland.