New technology must be used to modernise South Africa’s mining business

Instead of relying primarily on traditional geological interpretation, South Africa must urgently turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help, in the same way as has been done so successfully in Zambia. South African mining remains our principal engine of economic growth but that  will only continue to be the case if we reverse the negativities of deepening and increasingly complex orebodies, and the absence of new deposits and new mines.. Zambia’s use of AI has quickly resulted in ground being broken for the building of a $2.3-billion copper mine at Mingomba. Amazingly, AI was successful in analysing vast amounts of geological, geophysical, drilling and historical exploration data and was able to point out high-grade mineralisation with amazing accuracy.