Exclusive: Startup makes AI-driven minerals find Down Under
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A startup using AI to guide geologic exploration believes it has found a major Australian deposit of indium, a rare metal used in solar panels, LCD screens and semiconductors.
Why it matters: Earth AI's location of what appear to be commercial concentrations shows applications for AI in the mining sector.
- In this case, it means finding indium outside of China, currently the biggest supplier, as the U.S. and other nations scramble to diversify sourcing.
Driving the news: The company, which recently raised a $20 million Series B round, told Axios exclusively that it located signs of a deposit on an outcropping roughly 310 miles northwest of Sydney.
- Some assays show up to 117 parts per million and multiple samples show over 20 ppm.
- "Ore grades for Indium typically begin at 1 ppm In, underscoring the high-grade nature of this outcrop," the announcement states.
How it works: The company has trained an AI model to predict subsurface conditions where large amounts of specific minerals and metals have likely formed.
- "A mineral deposit is like a seed in an apple. The apple is the hydrothermal system, the seed is the [mineral] deposit. It's hard to detect the seed, it's through hundreds of meters of rock, but it's easier to detect an apple," founder and CEO Roman Teslyuk tells Axios.
- "We train an AI system to detect favorable geological conditions where deposits form," he said.
Catch up quick: It's the latest of several finds for the startup formed in 2017, including recently announced deposits of palladium, platinum and nickel.
- Its business model envisions selling rights to extraction companies once Earth AI has found deposits. It also provides services to companies for locating minerals on their holdings.
- Australia's regulatory system makes company geophysical data available, giving the firm decades of granular info that's part of a "massive training dataset," Teslyuk said.
- He calls it a major break with older, "dogmatic" exploration methods that work for shallow deposits, but now the "low-hanging fruit" has been picked.
What's next: Drilling at the Kooranjie project, where it holds rights and is already exploring other prospects there like tin and tungsten, Teslyuk said.
- Earth AI touts a proprietary drilling process that it says disturbs much less land than traditional methods.
- "Indium is next on the list to go in and start drilling and taking core samples and assess the full potential," Teslyuk said.
