Small toy figure and mineral imitation are seen in front of the BHP logo in this illustration.
BHP Group has teamed up with Microsoft Corp to improve the copper recovery from its Escondida mine in Chile, the world's biggest copper mine, by using machine learning and artificial intelligence, the company said on Tuesday.
BHP expects to double the amount of copper produced over the next 30 years to keep pace with the progress of decarbonization technologies like electric vehicles, offshore wind and solar farms.
Miners are trying to find and create new mines and processes that can take upwards of a decade to achieve more metal out of existing mines and processes.
We expect the next big wave in mining to come from the advanced use of digital technologies, said BHP Chief Technology Officer Laura Tyler.
BHP said it will be possible to adjust variables that affect ore processing and grade recovery by using real-time data from plants that process ore in combination with AI-based recommendations from Microsoft's Azure platform.
The world's biggest miner, BHP, is the sole owner of Escondida and operates the mine with partners Rio Tinto and Japan's JECO Corp. The mining company produced more than 1 million tonnes of copper during the last financial year ending in June.