Leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, Mineural offers a targeting service that enhances efficiency, minimises environmental impact, and reduces financial risk for mineral exploration projects.
Mineral exploration plays a crucial role in the global green revolution, as rare earths and critical raw materials are essential components of clean energy technologies. A significant aspect of this transition involves establishing a circular economy, which aims to maximise resource efficiency and minimise waste. This approach must be implemented throughout supply chains to ensure genuine sustainability.
To support this endeavour, Mineural is dedicating its expertise to creating innovative AI solutions to simplify mineral exploration. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to produce discrete exploration targets, Mineural minimises the area and time needed for exploration, reducing environmental impact and capital risk. Increasing the efficiency and success odds of exploration projects ensures sustainable and environmentally friendly mining practices.
The Intelligent Resource Identification System (IRIS) technology developed by Mineural is poised to play a critical role in enhancing sustainability within the sector. It has the potential to revolutionise the mining industry and influence the future of exploration. To gain further insights into Mineural’s origins, principles, and technologies, The Innovation Platform sat down with CEO Julien Carayol.
What are the core values and mission that drive Mineural’s operations?
Our team wants to play a part in the energy transition and the global struggle for the necessary resources while minimising its environmental impacts. We want to use the best technologies available to give a real technological edge to North American and European exploration companies and government agencies in the search for critical and strategic mineral resources.
Mineural’s IRIS technology is commodity agnostic – it can be used to generate mineral exploration targets for any commodity. In line with our core values, Mineural chooses to focus on the use of IRIS for the discovery of critical and strategic minerals. These include lithium, copper, nickel and rare earth elements, to name a few.
Our future goals are to expand our technological products to other aspects of mineral exploration and mining and to related industries.
Can you provide an overview of the history of Mineural?
We first started developing IRIS in September of 2021 with the purpose of using it to win the Frank Arnott Award, a worldwide competition where each team presents an innovative method or technology in mineral exploration.
Despite our best efforts, our team at the time failed to meet the deadlines of the contest because of the scale of our undertaking. Nonetheless, we were far enough along that we were all able to assess the importance of the technological breakthrough we had achieved so far.
This led us to abandon the contest and start thinking about a new way to make use of what we had just created. The development of the technology still progressed in the meantime, but at a reduced pace. In the summer of 2022, we decided that we would incorporate a company with the original team and transfer the intellectual property of the technology to the company.
In January of 2023, we incorporated Mineural Inc. In late December of that same year, we received our first private seed funding and were thus able to quickly acquire our first clients in Q1 of 2024.
Can you elaborate on the technologies Mineural employs in the exploration and extraction of critical metals?
Mineural’s IRIS technology employs the most technologically advanced neural network type available today. To our knowledge, we are the only ones doing so in the mining and mineral exploration industry.
For mineral exploration, this distinction means that our AI learns the complex signature of any type of mineral deposits with a single holistic neural network that processes all relevant geological, geophysical, geochemical, and even geographical data. This means that IRIS also learns from the complex relationships between the different data types.
Thus, IRIS yields mineral exploration targets that are generated using exploration vectors that no other company has access to except for our clients. In theory, this means that IRIS could be the key to some mineral exploration discoveries that are otherwise invisible and only discoverable by luck alone.
How do you maximise the effectiveness of your exploration projects while minimising the ecological impact?
IRIS produces discrete exploration targets that our clients must prioritise. This means a smaller area to explore for the client and a shorter first phase of exploration focused on these targets. This can drastically reduce the time and money needed to discover a new mineral deposit. An early discovery can lead to better, less wasteful follow-up exploration work to further increase the value of the mineral asset.
How does Mineural leverage technology to ensure sustainable and environmentally friendly mining practices?
The first phase in the mining cycle is exploration. Despite not being the phase with the biggest environmental impact when you consider a single mining operation cycle from start to finish, exploration is being conducted on many orders of magnitude more sites than there are mine sites. According to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, less than one in 10,000 mineral exploration projects leads to a mine.
An exploration project means greenhouse gas emissions via the use of aeroplanes, helicopters, cars and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), as well as ecological disturbances. Minimising the amount of exploration projects by increasing their efficiency and their odds of success can have a real impact on reducing this environmental impact.
Mineural stands at the forefront of a new era in mineral exploration, where advanced AI technology and a commitment to sustainability converge. By providing precise targeting services, Mineural significantly improves exploration efficiency, lowers environmental impact, and reduces financial risk. As the demand for critical metals continues to grow, Mineural’s innovative approach ensures that exploration projects are not only successful but also aligned with global sustainability goals. With its pioneering technology and dedicated mission, Mineural is set to revolutionise the mining industry and support the transition to a greener future.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 19th edition of our quarterly publication.
