Mariana Minerals, led by CEO Turner Caldwell, is operating what it says is the world’s first autonomous mine, extracting and refining copper in Utah to meet surging demand for the costly metal.
Turner Caldwell, CEO and cofounder of Mariana Minerals, believes that a copper mine will be the next great use of AI rather than another chatbot.
At its Copper One mine in remote southeast Utah, his startup, Mariana Minerals, is starting the world's first autonomous mining operation today.
Automated drills will dig, massive robotic haul trucks will transport ore for processing, and MarianaOS, an AI-enabled platform, will monitor and manage the entire process.
Even Boston Dynamics' sensor-rich Spot robot dog is being used by the corporation to patrol the 10,000-acre site and check conditions.
As demand for the metal rises and the politics around "critical minerals" intensify, Mariana could contribute to increasing both the supply and refinement of copper in the United States. The Utah copper mine and a separate lithium refining facility it is establishing in Texas, which extracts the mineral from oil and gas production wastewater, could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars for the corporation in a few years.
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