Earth AI includes the search for essential minerals

The model is as good as its data, with Roman Teslyuk, the data was not coming fast enough.

“I hate being late,” Teslyuk, founder and CEO of Earth AI, told TechCrunch.

For the past few years, World AI has been in search of essential minerals such as copper, platinum, and palladium in parts of Australia where no one thought there would be. Early AI models show a few areas that have proven promising, but finding mineral-rich rocks has been slower than Teslyuk would like.

The problem, he said, was rubber.

“As we increased the number of drills, we began to experience delays,” he said. Typically, labs that process rock samples for evidence of significant minerals have about two months’ worth of leftovers, Teslyuk said. But recently, as interest in creating new sources has increased, the delay has doubled. “We are behind 7 km – 7,000 meters of samples that we don’t have much of.”

So Earth AI is setting up labs instead, the founders told TechCrunch, hoping to bring the time down from five months to five days.

Earth AI models have been good at showing potential mine areas, Teslyuk said, but after that is identified, startups still need to drill to confirm what’s below and how it’s distributed. Underground exploration has come a long way, but there is no substitute for drilling.

Once the drill bits are removed, they must be processed by a lab. He said: “We don’t know if we have struck gold or not, we can’t see it with our own eyes.”

For the final financial decisions of the mine, including those that may affect sales, Earth AI will still use third parties to verify its availability. But during research, a fast in-house lab can significantly reduce costs by ensuring that drilling is sent to the right place to get the best sample data.

“If you don’t have answers in time, you have to wait for five months to answer, the next question (to drill) is not as good as it could be,” said Teslyuk. “To minimize drilling, you want to ask the right questions, to get the information in time to narrow down where to go.”