Process Innovation
When Alejo Sfriso, corporate consultant at SRK Consulting Argentina, stepped up to the podium at the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings 2025 conference in Brisbane, his message was as direct as it was disruptive: it’s time to leave deterministic factor-of-safety thinking behind.
The future of underground mining could mean no one sets foot underground at all - a zero-entry mine powered by autonomy, interoperability, and constantly updated digital twins.
Every hour of downtime costs a mine tens of thousands of dollars, and Professor Amir Gandomi told the NSW Resources Regulator’s Mechanical Engineering Safety Seminar how artificial intelligence is now cutting those losses by predicting failures and optimising operations in seconds.
When reliable environmental performance data doesn’t exist, simulation can step in – and according to IGO Nova’s Zachary Hearne, it could give Australian producers a market advantage.
What do Formula 1 racing and tailings storage have in common? More than you’d think - especially when AI joins the engineering crew.
China quietly built the world’s most powerful critical minerals supply chains while other nations - including Australia - dozed through a geopolitical shift that now threatens economic security, trade independence, and defence readiness.
For years, exploration teams have wrestled with data chaos in the field.
When Katrina Garven, Principal Database Consultant at Alias Database Services, reflects on how mining and exploration companies use geological data, she sees an industry undergoing a quiet revolution.
Sensor-based sorting is no longer just a niche preconcentration step - it’s fast becoming a critical pillar of intelligent gold processing.
The future of mineral exploration may hinge less on drill rigs and more on the quality of the data flowing from them.
