What is a Frontier Firm?

Microsoft defines a Frontier Firm as a human-led but AI-operated organization that integrates AI agents as core team members—enabling rapid scaling, agile operations, and enhanced productivity through hybrid human-agent collaboration and on-demand intelligence.

Microsoft identifies four key pillars of AI transformation:

1. Enrich employee experiences: Empower people with AI tools that remove friction and unlock creativity.
2. Reinvent customer engagement: Deliver transparency, personalization, and trust at scale.
3. Reshape business processes: Automate and optimize operations for speed, safety, and sustainability.
4. Bend the curve on innovation: Move beyond pilots to bold, repeatable frameworks that accelerate transformation.

Microsoft mining and metals customers Ma’aden, Petrosea, and Outokumpu bring these pillars to life and drive efficiency, productivity, cost reduction, safety, and sustainability. I’ll talk more about each one below.

From reactive to proactive: How AI and agents transform mining operations

Frontier Firms are deploying AI and agents across the mining value chain—not just to automate tasks, but to enable supervised autonomous systems that can monitor, reason, and act. AI-powered innovations are already delivering measurable results. For example, BHP and Microsoft have partnered to use advanced AI and machine learning technologies to enhance copper recovery at the world’s largest copper mine. AI-powered systems adapt in real-time to more variability. This optimizes recovery rates, improves throughput, and grade control. It also reduces downtime, waste, water usage, energy consumption, and costs.

With AI and agents, mining companies are not only addressing today’s challenges but are also building resilience and agility for the future—empowering their workforce, optimizing operations, and accelerating progress toward sustainability and growth.

The Frontier Firm in action: Empowering people with Microsoft Copilot and agents

Ma’aden, a leading mining and metals company, aimed to transform into a Frontier Firm by using digital innovation and AI to stay competitive in a resource-intensive industry while supporting sustainability and growth.

The company faced pressure to modernize operations without disrupting workforce roles—balancing efficiency gains with its commitment to empower employees rather than replace them and ensuring adoption of AI tools aligned with cultural and operational needs.

Ma’aden deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot and agentic AI capabilities across workflows—integrating generative AI into collaboration and decision-making. The focus was on augmenting human expertise, enabling employees to automate routine tasks, and free time for strategic thinking.

The transformation improved productivity, saved time, and enriched employee experiences—positioning Ma’aden as a Frontier Firm in mining. Employees reported higher engagement and confidence, as AI functioned as a trusted assistant, not a substitute—driving faster decisions, better collaboration, and sustainable growth.

“We intentionally gave Copilot to early adopters—people who are excited about technology—because they would act as change agents for the rest of their teams.”

—Khalid AlMutairi, Vice President, IT at Ma’aden

Turning obstacles into intelligent opportunities

Petrosea, a leading Indonesian mining and energy services firm, faced intense price wars and operational inefficiencies. To sustain growth and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, it needed to differentiate beyond cost and embrace innovation.

Legacy batch processes and limited data access hindered real-time decision-making. Remote sites and rising sustainability requirements amplified complexity, requiring a shift to advanced digital capabilities for competitive resilience.

Petrosea launched its 3D strategy: diversification, digitalization, and decarbonization—deploying the Minerva Digital Platform on Microsoft Azure, integrating Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, predictive analytics, and digital twins. It adopted Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Copilot Stack, automation agents, and advanced security.

The company achieved a 15% increase in productivity, a 9% reduction in operational costs, improved safety, and was selected by the World Economic Forum to join its Global Lighthouse Network. Petrosea transformed adversity into innovation, building competitive differentiation as a Frontier Firm through AI-powered workflows.

The integration of IoT sensors, predictive maintenance, and a Remote Operations Center reshaped their business processes—shifting from manual, site-based oversight to centralized, data-driven control that improved efficiency and safety.

“All these innovations led to a 9% reduction in operation costs, decrease in incidents, and enhanced safety measures with real-time corrective actions.”

—Krishna Nawacandra, Digital Project Manager, Petrosea

AI-powered sustainability as strategy

Outokumpu, a global stainless-steel leader, faced mounting pressure to meet ambitious climate targets and comply with Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) reporting while embedding sustainability into its core strategy. Steel accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making decarbonization critical.

Manual, fragmented sustainability reporting hindered transparency and efficiency. Outokumpu needed a unified, intelligent data approach to accelerate green value creation and explore AI-powered ESG innovations for competitive advantage.

Outokumpu partnered with Microsoft to deploy the Intelligent Data Platform, Microsoft Fabric, and Sustainability Manager—automating environmental data processes, enabling advanced analytics, and training leaders through the AI data-driven green value creation program.

Outokumpu achieved up to 75% lower carbon footprint versus industry average, launched Circle Green® stainless steel with 93% lower carbon footprint, and helps customers cut 10 million tons of CO₂ annually. Data and AI now fuel new business models, cost savings, and sustainable growth.

By using Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform and AI capabilities, Outokumpu is not just improving sustainability reporting—it is bending the curve on innovation by accelerating the development of new low-emission products and unlocking green business models that deliver both environmental and commercial impact.

“We have set a very clear goal for ourselves. We want to achieve something remarkable.”

—Heidi Peltonen, Vice President of Sustainability at Outokumpu

Advancing the Frontier for mining organizations

Across these three customer stories, a common thread emerges: transformation is not accidental—it is intentional. Frontier Firms combine human ambition with AI, Copilot, and agents to create scalable impact. Ma’aden reimagined productivity, while Petrosea transformed adversity into innovation, and Outokumpu turned data into a strategic asset.

What sets these leaders apart is discipline: they do not stop at adoption. They measure outcomes, codify frameworks, and scale with intent. Technology is a purpose multiplier, enabling safer operations, faster innovation, and sustainable growth.

As Frontier Firms continue to redefine what’s possible in mining, the horizon is filled with opportunities for AI-powered solutions—from predictive maintenance and autonomous operations to intelligent exploration, workflow automation, and sustainability platforms—each poised to unlock new levels of efficiency, safety, and innovation across the industry. The Microsoft GenAI for Energy Permitting Solution Accelerator applied to mining represents a promising step for Frontier Firms seeking to transform permitting from a bottleneck into a strategic advantage. Built on the Microsoft Cloud, the accelerator aims to help mining companies accelerate permitting timelines, improve compliance confidence, and enhance transparency with regulators and communities.

With these and other innovative solutions, the future belongs to Frontier Firms. Are you ready?

Discover solutions

Using Copilot in energy and resources

Explore the possibilities of AI transformation

Learn more

• Visit Microsoft for energy and resources and Microsoft for the mining industry.
• Explore Azure Arc.
• Learn more about Microsoft Security for enterprise.
• Discover over 1,000 AI customer use cases in the blog AI-powered success—with more than 1,000 stories of customer transformation and innovation.
• Read the latest International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2025.

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As the mining industry undergoes its digital and AI transformation, Microsoft remains committed to delivering innovative and secure solutions. From adopting AI and agents to streamlining business processes and unlocking efficiency to moving legacy systems to the cloud—we’re dedicated to working together towards a powerful and sustainable future of mining.

AI transformation for a more resilient future of mining

As we are seeing across the energy and resources industry, the mining sector is facing growing pressure to support the global energy transition, with AI emerging as a prominent solution. With demand for critical minerals expected to quadruple by 2040³, AI can help mining companies locate and extract resources more efficiently, with studies showing potential reductions of 20% to 30% in the time and cost of mineral discovery.⁴

From early stage exploration to downstream processing and logistics, AI has the potential to be embedded throughout the mining value chain. In upstream operations, it can enhance mineral prospectivity mapping, resource estimation, and production planning. Downstream, it can optimize ore blending, recovery, and processing. Even side streams like supply chain logistics are beginning to see gains, as AI-powered efficiencies ripple across operations. And in exploration, AI unlocks insights from vast geoscientific datasets—both legacy and real-time—enabling faster, more accurate decision-making.

The possibilities for AI use cases in the mining sector are abundant, and there are ways for organizations embarking on their digital transformation journey to get started today—such as with workforce productivity. AI adoption in this context is a powerful step towards the future of work, and Ma’aden, a mining company in Saudi Arabia, is a prime example of that. Ma’aden used Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to help employees be more productive in daily tasks, like getting quick answers on policies, summarizing content, and drafting presentations, emails, and meeting minutes. Ma’aden saw enhanced productivity, with Copilot users saving up to 2,200 hours monthly.

In addition to workforce productivity, Microsoft AI solutions are also enabling operational transformation, as seen in Sandvik’s approach to equipment optimization. Sandvik created a cloud-based service solution that uses data and AI to generate insights on the state of their machines to support the optimization of the operation of equipment. Powered by Microsoft Azure Cloud and its analytics and AI services, the solution uses data to produce actionable insights into equipment performance and status—helping to drive transformation across its business.

Foundations for AI-driven transformation in mining

Read the report

Unlocking potential: Bringing the cloud to mining operations

As the mining industry advances efficiency, safety, and sustainability goals, the adaptive cloud has emerged as a critical piece of this journey. Microsoft’s adaptive cloud approach uses cloud-native and AI technologies across hybrid, multi-cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. By making operational technology (OT) cloud-enabled, mining organizations can unlock real-time insights, streamline operations, and enhance resilience. This union of cloud and OT supports smarter decision-making and predictive maintenance, and lays the foundation for innovation and scalability.

Boliden offers a compelling example of how cloud infrastructure can modernize mining operations at scale. The Swedish mining company needed to automate and centralize data collection, increase visibility across processes, and add new ways to analyze information. Boliden monitors the Garpenberg site with a network of 500 cameras that give management teams oversight of the mines, wells, and operations, helping to keep an eye on productivity and safety. The company now uses a combination of Microsoft Azure IoT Edge and Microsoft Azure IoT Hub to connect the cameras with other Boliden systems and the rest of its IoT network, which consists of thousands of sensors above and below ground, along with other devices. By working with a flexible, fully featured cloud infrastructure, the company can now bring more productivity and safety to all their sites.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) also exemplifies how adaptive cloud infrastructure can overcome the limitations of traditional on-premises environments to support scalable, intelligent operations. EGA deployed a hybrid environment that connected private cloud services through on-premises datacenters. Deploying a hybrid environment helped to optimize latency, support advanced AI and automation solutions, offer sustaining commercial savings by applying intelligence at the edge, and streamline processing for massive amounts of real-time readings from sensors, machinery, and production lines.

Learn more about energy and resources solutions with Microsoft

No matter what your organization’s digital transformation may look like, Microsoft is committed to helping to drive progress in the mining industry and working to grow sustainable, secure, AI-powered businesses. Microsoft has always been built on trust and a robust security suite, and is committed to prioritizing security in the design, build, and operation of our products and services. To take a deeper dive into cybersecurity in the age of generative AI and building a foundation for AI-powered transformation in mining, read our latest e-book.

• Explore the possibilities of AI transformation with Microsoft.
• Read the AI Transformation in Mining whitepaper.
• Visit Microsoft for energy and resources and Microsoft for the mining industry.
• Read the new International Energy Agency report, Energy and AI.
• Learn more about Microsoft Security for enterprise. 

¹ Tracking the Trends 2025 | Deloitte US, Deloitte 2025

² 2025: The Year the Frontier Firm Is Born, Microsoft, April 2025

³ The energy transition will need critical minerals and metals. Here’s how to mine responsibly, World Economic Forum, June 2024

⁴ Now is the time to invest in sustainable mining technologies. Here’s why, World Economic Forum, September 2024

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This critical minerals deficit presents an opportunity for today’s mining leaders to harness innovative technology solutions to not only accelerate and improve accuracy of exploration, but also to create more efficient, resilient processes across areas like labor and skills, regulations, and health and safety. One of the first and most promising steps toward solving some of mining’s biggest challenges is embracing a digital mindset and a unified approach to digital and AI transformation. 

Adopting a digital mindset and a unified approach

As the global energy marketplace faces new demands, mining companies and their partners face the need to increase digital fluency, skills, and effectiveness by integrating new tools, technology solutions, and learning methods, particularly as AI shows huge promise for improving operational efficiency.

For mining companies today, that means adopting a “digital mindset,” or a set of attitudes and behaviors that enable people and organizations to see how data, algorithms, and AI open up new possibilities and chart a path for success in a business landscape increasingly dominated by data-intensive and intelligent technologies.² A digital mindset encourages curiosity, continuous growth, and, critically, the opportunity to learn from mistakes—essential as rapid technology changes shorten typical skilling cycles and time to market. But successful adoption of a digital mindset also depends on how well employees internalize new digital values, attitudes, and behaviors.

Learning new skills and tools alone isn’t enough, though; employees must apply their new knowledge to accelerate business outcomes and create additional opportunities. This is where leaders can support by adopting a unified approach, grounded in both strategic collaboration and AI design wins, that prioritizes collective action and empowers employees. A unified approach ensures that all parts of the business work collaboratively towards common goals, breaking down silos and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This holistic strategy not only boosts operational efficiency but also helps companies meet stringent environmental and social governance standards. Ultimately, a digital mindset combined with a unified approach enables mining companies to sustainably and safely navigate the complexities of modern industry.

Prioritizing partnerships and AI innovation

Elevating human performance with advanced AI-powered technology is a critical aspect of driving a digital mindset and a unified approach. Another fundamental piece is global partnership. The scale and complexity of today’s mining challenges make partnership essential; no single organization can drive this transformation alone. This point is illustrated by the reality of a chronic labor shortage, with 86% of mining executives finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain talent.³ More than ever, mining companies need to work together to pool knowledge, share resources, and establish a new baseline on digital and AI transformation across the industry.

Microsoft and our partners are here to help, offering the applications and other solutions from leading independent software vendors (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs) that can help mining companies achieve improved business outcomes, ultimately resulting in better customer relationships and more sustainable practices.

Now with AI, mining companies can leverage platforms like Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Document Intelligence to accelerate intelligent search velocity and accuracy on large exploration data sets they use. Streamlining this process with help from generative AI and automation allows them to create 3D models faster by significantly reducing the time spent searching and preparing data—potentially from weeks down to just minutes. There’s also potential for enormous overall productivity gains and empowerment to spend more time on high-value exploration projects, enhancing their efforts to increase production yields, reduce waste, and improve cost-efficiency and safety of extraction projects.

Across the mining workforce, employees are further seeing increased productivity with generative AI technology as they use tools like Microsoft Copilot to streamline tasks such as drafting emails, summarizing meetings, conducting research, analyzing data, generating manuals, and preparing presentations. Mining companies can take AI design wins even further with assistance from agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Agents in Copilot are AI assistants with expertise in a defined set of tasks, such as updating records or drafting support tickets. They can help boost productivity and save time, allowing for more focus on high-value work. Critically, we’re making it easy for energy companies to develop their own line-of-business agents with the user-friendly interface of Microsoft Copilot Studio, and agents developed by our ISV and SI partner ecosystem are also becoming available within the Azure Marketplace.

Fueling efficient, sustainable mining practices through Microsoft data and AI solutions

As mining companies progress on their digital transformation journeys, we’re quickly seeing the impact of high-performing AI and data management solutions. The stories below are just a few examples of how mining leaders have embraced a digital mindset, unified approach, and collaborative workflows while leveraging Microsoft data and AI solutions to improve efficiency and sustainability across their work.

Epiroc

Epiroc’s AI-powered approach to manufacturing offers valuable insights into AI’s role in the mining industry. As a leading rock excavation equipment manufacturer, Epiroc relies heavily on steel, which often consists of components like iron, metallurgical coal, manganese, cobalt, and other metals. Epiroc faced challenges with siloed data and data sharing practices across its global facilities, impacting the consistency of steel and efficiency of production. By utilizing Azure Machine Learning and Azure Data Factory, Epiroc integrated and analyzed data more effectively, enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency.

AI and machine learning models enabled Epiroc to automate complex processes, ensuring consistent steel quality and reducing inefficiencies, product returns, and waste. Impressively, Epiroc deployed a scalable AI solution within 60 hours, showcasing AI’s rapid implementation potential in the mining sector.

The success of Epiroc’s AI implementation highlights the importance of cross-functional collaboration, demonstrating AI’s transformative impact on data utilization, process automation, scalability, sustainability, innovation, and collaboration in mining operations.

Sandvik

Sandvik, an engineering company specializing in mining, rock excavation, rock drilling, rock processing, and metal cutting equipment, leverages AI to enhance sustainability in the mining industry. By utilizing Azure AI Services, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Synapse Analytics, Sandvik optimizes operations through data analysis, predicting equipment failures, and improving maintenance schedules to make informed decisions, forecast demand, and optimize resource allocation, leading to more efficient rock processing and mining operations.

Microsoft’s AI and analytics solutions are pivotal in reducing energy consumption, minimizing waste, and lowering carbon emissions, aligning with the industry’s net-zero goals. Safety is also enhanced as AI predicts and prevents potential hazards by analyzing sensor data and alerting workers to anomalies. Sandvik’s innovative adoption of AI technologies not only boosts operational efficiency and sustainability but also positions the company as a leader in the mining sector, setting a benchmark for others to follow.

Emirates Global Aluminum

Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) is the world’s largest premium aluminum producer and runs mining, refining, smelting, and recycling facilities. The company is a long-time user of transformative technology, including AI, to drive business growth. The company already used Microsoft Copilot, and to get even more value from AI capabilities, EGA moved a portion of its server base to the Azure platform for easier management of data-intensive operations. The company can now also leverage the power and flexibility of Azure to support safety-critical applications that use AI for tasks like detecting rod latch failures in real time. When this happens, they can respond faster and make sure production continues.  

After integrating Azure into its core operations, EGA saw AI response times that were 10 to 13 times faster, plus lower latency and 86% cost savings associated with AI image and video use cases. Now they can explore additional AI use cases such as visual AI for inspection of carbon anodes that are essential to production. They’ve even developed and trained an AI model that helps define and differentiate what makes a good anode from an undesirable one, which has helped improve the quality of aluminum. Moving forward, EGA is eager to continue embracing technology and AI innovation to enhance productivity, develop new types of alloys, and embrace sustainable practices.  

Boliden

Boliden, a Swedish multinational mining leader that produces high-quality metals, including zinc and copper, is pioneering the use of AI to foster a sustainable future in mining. By integrating Azure AI Services, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Synapse Analytics, Boliden has revolutionized its data collection and analysis, automated processes, and enhanced visibility.

Azure’s cloud infrastructure has provided Boliden with the scalability and flexibility needed to operate efficiently, even in remote mining sites. This blend of cloud computing and mobile device usage has streamlined the deployment of systems and tools, while AI and automation have significantly reduced manual tasks, such as monitoring video streams, saving about two hours daily. AI has also bolstered Boliden’s sustainability and productivity by enabling continuous trend tracking, integrating additional data sources, and monitoring various parameters.

Explore more digital mining solutions

At Microsoft, we’re committed to doing our part in the global effort to accelerate the energy transition and believe that partnership and knowledge-sharing is what makes it all possible. With cloud and AI, mining leaders can accelerate their digital transformation to help optimize value across their entire enterprise, enabling faster progress toward business goals and a more sustainable future—and we’re here to support along the way. You can check out our additional resources to learn more about working with the Microsoft for energy and resources team.

Learn more

Microsoft for energy and resources

• Microsoft for energy and resources home page
• Energy and resources blog

Microsoft and the mining industry

• Microsoft for the mining industry
• eBook: Building the mine of the future in the industrial metaverse
• Podcast: Digital Transformation and AI in Mining – a discussion with Joseph Starwood from Microsoft
• Webcast: Mining’s Future: The Role of AI, Cloud, and Renewable Energy

Microsoft capabilities and solutions

• Sustainable by design: Advancing low carbon materials
• Microsoft Copilot—Talk to your AI assistant: Ask AI questions, generate images, and more
• Microsoft 365 Copilot—Learn how to use Microsoft 365 Copilot
• SAP on the Microsoft Cloud
• SAP on Azure migration

¹The mining industry must be ambitious in its support of the net zero transition, World Economic Forum, February 2024.

²Developing a Digital Mindset, Harvard Business Review, May to June 2022.

³Has mining lost its luster? Why talent is moving elsewhere and how to bring them back, McKinsey & Company, February 2023.

The post From mindset to market: Driving AI innovation and sustainability in mining appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

The renewable energy sector relies on critical minerals including graphite, copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt for batteries and other clean energy technologies. The mining industry plays an essential role in not only fueling and supplying the energy transition, but also in attaining sustainability goals.

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Transform the energy and resources industry and achieve net zero with technology innovation.

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Join Microsoft at the World Mining Congress 2023

Leading mining companies are accelerating the transition to clean energy with digital innovation and implementing ground-breaking solutions with Microsoft technologies that include process automation, cloud migration, predictive analytics, AI, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

I’m looking forward to sharing how companies can leverage AI in the digital sustainable mine of the future at the upcoming World Mining Congress 2023 in Brisbane, Australia. This workshop aims to broaden the discussion beyond technology infrastructure and AI-enabled solutions. For example, a more holistic perspective of AI infrastructure could address the dual challenges of meeting energy demands profitably and efficiently while also driving toward a sustainable future.

First, let’s examine how organizations in the mining industry are stepping up to those challenges.

Transformative solutions for complex challenges

To operate more efficiently and sustainably amid global supply chain disruptions in recent years, mining companies need to decarbonize and bring agility to mission-critical processes like supply chain management. Digital solutions that leverage machine learning and predictive analytics enable faster responses to rapidly changing market conditions and risks that include cybersecurity, geopolitical, and climate events.

The global mining industry is transforming with Microsoft technologies. Sweden’s Sandvik Group, a leader in mining and engineering, wanted to help the mining industry become more sustainable through the adoption of cutting-edge technology. To enable digital transformation, Sandvik developed a remote monitoring solution that provides AI, IoT, and predictive analytics powered by Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Databricks, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure Synapse Analytics. The solution collects and analyzes data from hundreds of sensors, provides actionable insights into equipment performance and status, and helps Sandvik improve predictive maintenance on machines. As a result, its customers can benefit from improved productivity, safety, and energy and fuel efficiency.

Metinvest Holdings in Ukraine is also using Microsoft technology to make significant operational improvements. To increase energy efficiency, Metinvest implemented an AI solution with Azure Data Factory, Azure Machine Learning, and Power BI that was able to predict and control the silicon content of iron to reduce fuel consumption in blast furnaces. The project began by improving fuel-efficiency in blast-furnaces, with plans to embed digital solutions throughout the firm’s value chain.

Building a digital sustainable mine of the future

These customer stories touch on common themes that organizations face on their net-zero journeys. Building the mine of the future requires more than digitizing established processes, as I explained in this recent white paper, “Empowering the Mining Industry.” The complexity of optimizing across interdependent mining and sustainability priorities requires more than standalone applications. We can no longer rely on pencil and paper, simple spreadsheets, or even a collection of industry-specific applications. Optimizing the mine of the future will require each mine to operate as an Intelligence Driven Organization (IDO) with a system of intelligence layer that spans not only the enterprise but interconnects with the greater extended enterprise and ecosystem of partners, suppliers, and customers.

AI and the IDO model are important tools for overcoming the daunting challenge of meeting sustainability regulations and stakeholder requirements while delivering climate-smart minerals faster and more cost-effectively.

Collaborating toward a holistic AI infrastructure

Using AI-based solutions and the IDO model to form the digital sustainable mine of the future will empower miners to quickly respond to rapidly changing conditions. These innovations in operational and energy efficiency are a tremendous step forward. But we can’t stop there. We also need to have broader, more holistic discussions around AI infrastructure. The transition to a cleaner, sustainable future requires our collective efforts to accelerate climate goals while supporting business goals for mining.

To help move toward a shared definition, Microsoft offers a point of view for the digital sustainable mine of the future, which includes not only the technology foundation but also an integrated model that addresses both business and sustainability needs.

The digital sustainable mine of the future isn’t built on technology alone. It relies on scaffolding that includes aligned policy makers, the facilitation of ongoing research, and stakeholders that provide insights that build understanding, inform decisions, and drive effective actions. The infrastructure for AI must also inform focused investment to achieve mission, government, community, and business goals. There must be a regulatory environment in place for the effective and ethical use of AI. Trust must be earned and maintained through verification, validation, traceability, auditability, and accountability. And finally, an infrastructure for AI must effectively leverage current technology while rapidly adapting to accelerating innovation.

Capabilities and principles for intelligence-driven ecosystems

Operating with a shared framework of capabilities and principles, the infrastructure for AI combines with intelligence-driven organizations to form intelligence driven-ecosystems. Systems of intelligence improve business operations and sustainability in a continuous feedback loop that in turn informs the decisions of policy makers, researchers, stakeholders, investors, and regulators.

This larger and more encompassing vision of the infrastructure for AI enables us to accelerate toward climate goals while also attaining desirable business outcomes for miners. Combining sustainability goals with business outcome is important for mining organizations, who must operate productively and profitably while investing in climate positive projects.

We all share the environmental outcome of our planet. By working together within an intelligence-driven ecosystem, we can move forward toward a sustainable energy future.

Additional resources

• Learn more about how Microsoft works to enable the sustainable growth of renewables in the mining industry.
• 3 key takeaways from CERAWeek 2022 and a cleaner future for the energy transition. 
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition. 
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our energy data manager.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website. 

¹EIA projects increases in global energy consumption and emissions through 2050, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2021.

The post Microsoft at World Mining Congress 2023: Accelerate innovation in mining with AI appeared first on The Microsoft Cloud Blog.

To enable the sustainable growth of renewables, the global mining industry is rapidly evolving with a shift toward more efficient, resilient processes. The sector is at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution, with mining companies worldwide benefiting from process automation, cloud migration, predictive analytics, AI, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The adoption of these innovations is transforming mining to optimize assets and improve productivity, sustainability, and workplace safety.

Prior to digitization, mining organizations relied mainly on historical data to manage operations. Frontline workers read gauges and recorded values and observations on paper forms. Later, perhaps well after the shift ended, this data was entered into local computers and used to update large status boards. Any insights derived from this data came too late to favorably impact operational, financial, environmental, and safety outcomes. It was like driving down the road while looking into the rearview mirror. Digital transformation is now well established in the mining industry and some companies transformed boldly to advance their digital sustainable mine of the future visions. Others followed an incremental approach, often focusing on specific problems. A few started their digital transformations later and are catching up quickly.

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

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Digital transformation enables doing more with less

A lot has changed since we published this blog on digital transformation in the mining industry. The past few years have ushered in a series of challenges for mining organizations, from tailings dam failures and license to operate, to COVID-19, and supply chain disruptions. Mining leaders must simultaneously optimize operations across their value chains for multiple goals, constraints, regulations, and stakeholder expectations to make an immediate favorable impact on outcomes. Because of this, mining organizations need new capabilities to respond in real time and even predict future outcomes to prevent problems before they happen.

This urgency is felt across industries, as organizations and their employees worldwide are tasked to do more with less. While most mining organizations have digitized part of their processes and equipment, many mining frontline workers continue to struggle with existing paper-based and manual processes. Both business and IT departments grapple with insufficient network connectivity, capacity, and reliability,

Increasing the pace of innovation

Increasingly, mining operations are adding digital sensors and upgrading networks to deliver real-time data for better business insights and decisions. As miners purchase and deploy new equipment, especially autonomous equipment, it often comes with a host of sensors. In addition, mining operations are selectively retrofitting sensors on movable and fixed legacy equipment. Although these sensors provide accurate, detailed, and reliable data in real time, sensors alone aren’t enough to provide the insights needed to transform operations.

To gain rapid insights across remote locations, Swedish mining company Boliden connected its hardware and systems including 500 cameras and thousands of below and above-ground sensors to Microsoft Azure. Using services such as Azure Stack Edge, Azure IoT Edge, and Computer Vision, Boliden can monitor its connected assets and mining sites around the clock. As a result, the organization has gained rapid visualization and detailed performance, productivity, and hazard insights at scale.

Mining companies are also installing and expanding digital networks across their operations and throughout processing plants including a combination of cellular, coaxial cable, ethernet, and fiber. Since mine sites cover large areas and their configuration and working areas frequently change, wired networks aren’t ideal. Larger mining operations are installing wireless private Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) networks, enabling computing capability on the network edge at the mine or plant site under the mining operation’s control. Private MEC enables powerful local data processing to meet latency, privacy, and security requirements.

Azure private MEC includes network functions, applications, and edge-optimized Azure services to deliver high-performance, ultra-low latency capabilities that meet the demanding needs of mining operations. Miners can leverage the Azure global cloud platform, connectivity, and ecosystem of partners to develop and deploy enterprise solutions as fully managed services across a broad range of computing platforms.

Improving insights, sustainability, and safety

Using data and insights made available over improved digital networks, mining operations can meet their toughest challenges. Engineering teams can design and build better water management systems and safer tailings dams. Operations teams can improve energy efficiency and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while operating safely, reliably, and efficiently. Frontline workers no longer need to read gauges and record values and observations on paper forms or in scattered spreadsheets. And all workers have the information they need to know what is happening and what to do next.

By choosing the right technologies, organizations can improve safety and productivity, even when facing daunting challenges like COVID-19. When safety restrictions limited travel and staff at mining sites, Australian mining firm BHP took advantage of Microsoft mixed reality and IoT technologies to deliver support and training to remote field workers.

Optimizing remote operations

Many remote locations have limited data network infrastructure with low bandwidth and frequent outages which impedes exchanging data with corporate offices and accessing internet resources. Mining operations that would like to benefit from the capabilities of cloud-enabled solutions are unable to do so, and mining executives make decisions affecting corporate performance and compliance based on incomplete data.

Innovative mining companies are employing creative approaches for data networking infrastructure like partnering with national network providers and governments as well as local communities and indigenous peoples to install new modern data networks for the benefit of all. Where existing data network infrastructure is insufficient or unreliable, some mining organizations are also utilizing satellites as their backup data networks.

Azure Space makes cloud connectivity and computing accessible for companies in many industries including mining and provides powerful connectivity, analytics, and emulation capabilities that enable organizations to maintain business continuity across globally disperse operations. To operate their own satellites, Azure Orbital Ground Station provides low-latency connection between an organization’s satellites and Azure. Mining organizations can extend satellite communications coverage through a global partner ecosystem of ground station networks and cloud modems as well as telemetry, tracking, and control functions. 

The digital sustainable mine of the future

Clean energy has become the fastest-growing segment of demand for critical minerals. For the mining industry, it means adopting digital technologies is more important than ever to meet this demand while navigating market volatility, supply chain challenges, sustainability commitments, geopolitical risks, and labor shortages. Mining industry leaders are working with Microsoft to digitize and transition to clean in a secure, sustainable, and resilient way. With technology, innovation, and collaboration, together we can accelerate this transformative journey toward the digital, sustainable mine of the future.

Learn more

• Read about how FLSmidth is working to enable customers to build zero-emissions mining and cement plants.
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

¹Climate-Smart Mining: Minerals for Climate Action, World Bank Group.

²The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, International Energy Agency.

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