To power AI, Khosla and a16z bet this startup can reinvent mining | Fortune

Mariana Minerals raises $310m to run AI mines in the US

Mariana Minerals raised $310M in Series B to extract copper and lithium in the US using autonomous AI mining, challenging China's 90% dominance of critical minerals. For tech leaders, this signals the new battlefield: automating critical-mineral extraction at scale is now the geopolitical chokepoint of AI infrastructure build-out.