Last summer, mining startup Kobold Splash When it says one of the largest copper deposits in the world has been discovered in Zambia for more than a decade.
Now, another startup, Earth AIspecifically introduced its own discovery to TechCrunch: in parts of Australia, promising mineral deposits of other mining clothing in parts of Australia have been overlooked for decades. While it is still unknown whether they are as large as Kobold, the news suggests that future supply of critical minerals may emerge from a combination of field data parsed by AI.
“Real, real boundaries [in mining] Earth AI founder and CEO Roman Teslyuk told TechCrunch that this is not technology.
Earth AI has identified sediments of copper, cobalt and gold in another copper, silver, molybdenum in the north of New South Wales, in another copper, silver, molybdenum in Sydney’s northwest.
Teslyuk’s graduate research originated from Earth AI. Ukrainian native Teslyuk is pursuing his PhD at the University of Sydney, where he is familiar with Australia’s mining industry. There, the government owns the right to deposit and leases it for a period of six years. He said that since the 1970s, exploration companies had to submit their data to the National Archives.
“For some reason, no one uses them,” he said. “If I could build an algorithm that can absorb all the knowledge and learn from the failures and successes of millions of geologists in the past, I could make better predictions about where to find minerals in the future.”
Teslyuk founded Earth AI, a software company dedicated to forecasting potential deposits and then engaging with customers who may be interested in exploring the site further. But clients are reluctant to invest, partly because they don’t want to bet millions of dollars on projections of unproven technology.
“Mining is a very conservative industry,” Teslake said. “Everything beyond the dogma approved is considered heresy.”
Therefore, Earth AI decided to develop its own drilling equipment to prove that the site it identified is as promising as the software’s recommendations. The company was accepted by Y Combinator’s Spring 2019 cohort and refined its hardware and software over the next few years. January Earth AI raises $20 million in Series B.
Although the company uses AI to search for minerals KoboldThis requires a different strategy, Teslyuk said. He said Earth AI’s algorithm is trained to quickly and efficiently scan a wide range of areas to find potentially overlooked sediments.
“The way we used to explore metals in the past, 20Th In the century, it takes very, very long. “It takes decades to find something. With the modern pace of the world, you can’t wait for this long,” said Tesluke.
