BHP Billiton teamed up with AI Technology to explore battery materials such as copper and nickel

Since the beginning of this year, new energy vehicles and related industries have attracted much attention, and the strong demand for electric vehicles has led to a more serious problem in the supply of battery materials. BHP Billiton on Wednesday announced plans to work with artificial intelligence explorer KoBold Metals to find battery minerals such as copper and nickel in Australia and other parts of the world.

BHP is increasing its bets on so-called "future-oriented commodities" portfolios. The company also expects growing demand for electric vehicles and clean energy to push up metal prices in the coming years, increasing profits for mining companies.

, KoBold Metals is said to use robots and artificial intelligence to explore battery materials. The company's main investors include the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund, a climate and technology fund backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

In recent years, mining companies have been using machine learning to explore underground mineral sources and made some major discoveries, such as Rio Tinto's Winu copper project, with estimated total reserves of 503 million tons.

Keenan Jennings, vice president of metal exploration at BHP Billiton, said that most shallow deposits have been discovered worldwide, but the remaining resources may be deep underground and more difficult to find from the surface.

He also said that the cooperation will help BHP Billiton to use this advanced technology to explore those deep underground resources.

Kurt House, chief executive of KoBold, said the exploration would cover more than 500000 square kilometers of western Australia.

He pointed out that in the past few decades, most of the proven mines have been in shallow areas of the surface, and the company plans to dig in deep areas between 200m and 1500 meters underground, most of which are low in exploration. and there may be a lot of unproven reserves.

, KoBold Metals currently has dozens of partners in 20 countries, including sub-Saharan Africa, North America and Australia, looking for resources such as copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium.

U. S. stocks closed Wednesday, with BHP shares down 1.68% at $61.95.