A year after the launch of Chat GPT and its
competitors, such as Google Bard and Microsoft Copilot, the world is still
debating the ramifications of the application of artificial intelligence (AI)
into daily life.
While experts continue to debate the potential
implications of adopting AI at both a personal and business level, the mining
industry has not stayed still waiting for the conclusions.
The sector has already embarked on a quest to
transform operations from the traditional heavy-equipment and men-on-site
operations, to mines that integrate connectivity, automation and AI.
On a visit to
MWC Barcelona, an annual trade show dedicated to the mobile communications
industry, MINING.COM was able to see how the world of telecommunications and
mining are increasingly intertwined.
Invited by
telecommunications giant Huawei, MINING.com — the first mining media to ever
attend MWC — saw sensors, smart cameras and 5G relay boxes ready to be deployed
to mines around the world.
There was buzz around
the new generation of mobile internet — “5.5G,” or “5G Advanced”. The new
standard is expected to make the networks themselves more “intelligent” through
the application of AI and machine learning, while also boosting performance and
reducing overall power consumption.
When Huawei vice
president of global marketing and solutions for mining and oil and gas, Jack
Chan, was asked why the company began developing solutions for the industry,
the answer was as quick as clear: safety.
“In China we have
almost 3 million coal miners working in 4,400 coal mines, which are underground
and often register deadly accidents,” Chan said. “When taking workers out of
the tunnels and into a room full of screens displaying numbers, graphs and
images, not only a company is saving lives, but is also more appealing to the
new generations.”
Chan added that
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure is crucial to
support intelligent mining. Without fast and reliable communication networks,
robust computing power, rapid data storage, and vigilant network security,
essential tasks, including real-time monitoring and instant data exchange would
be impossible, he explained.
“Young people don’t
want to spend hours underground, hot and breathing recycled air, but they are
happy to sit in a room with air conditioner and monitor activities in real
time,” he said.
Data on extraction,
personnel location and danger detection is centralized on a system designed to
eliminate problems caused by human error and miscommunication. Instead of
people, robots patrol and inspect the dark and narrow underground corridors.
“AI service architects
and AI algorithm engineers will become key roles in the era of intelligence,”
Chan predicts.
Remote and digital
solutions are common in other coal operations, such as those in Canada and
Australia, but China has lagged and now the government has set the goal of
achieving basic digitalization of all mines by 2035.
Huawei is a step ahead with is AI-based Pangu Mining,
a suit of applications launched in July last year, which were developed based
on the pilot verification of large AI models at industrial levels.
The name Pangu comes from ancient Chinese mythology
and folklore. The legendary figure is associated with the creation of the
world.
There are altogether 21 application scenarios related
to nine operating activities, namely, coal mining, tunneling, primary
transportation, auxiliary transportation, lifting, safety monitoring, rock
burst prevention, coal preparation, and coking.
Rock bursts are a particularly challenging issue in
mining. The primary means of preventing rock bursts is drilling destress holes,
whose quality matters. Shandong Energy has managed to address this challenge in
its Lilou and Xinjulong coal mines by deploying Huawei’s AI model.
Thanks to its visual recognition capabilities, Pangu
can intelligently analyze the quality of stress relief drilling, and assist
rock burst prevention personnel in quality verification, reducing their review
workload by 82%. It used to take three days to complete such checks; now the
time has been shortened to 10 minutes, with a 100% acceptance rate.
Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner,
has also adopted Huawei solutions with the goal of turning around under-performing mines and projects that have
crimped both production and profit.
The state-owned company is looking to streamline
structures and prioritize productive areas at a time when copper output is at
the lowest level in a quarter of a century.
It’s all about connectivity
Being a telecommunications company at heart, Huawei
has been able to deploy connectivity solutions, from networks to an operative
system able to run a wide range of equipment and smart machines. Named Harmony,
the OS enables different devices to speak the same language, facilitating
better connection and collaboration, and bringing a simple, continuous, secure
and reliable interaction experience in all scenarios.
“In the era of intelligence, digital intelligence
transformation can be accelerated only by combining AI technology with industry
cognition and valuable data accumulated by enterprises,” Jason Liu,
President, Learning & Certification Services of Huawei told the audience
during MWC Barcelona 2024.
Liu said AI solutions should be used as a tool, not as
a replacement of human intelligence.
Pangu, for instance, can detect a problem, inform the
location and characteristic of such problem and provide solutions suggestions.
The application is predictive, in the sense it can fill in the blanks at a very
deep level.
AI is enabling mining companies to become insight‐driven enterprises that utilize
data to make faster, accurate decisions, improve health and safety, boost
efficiency through error elimination and reduce operations footprint.
Digital thinking is not just a tool for mining
companies, but a core value that shapes their business. One of Huawei’s key
messages is that to succeed in the industry, miners need to foster an
organizational culture that embraces innovation and adapts to changing
technologies.
Mining.com