Mining TechnologyThe mining and metal sector is one of the major contributors to the global economy. The global pandemic has changed the working dynamics across the industry. Specifically, the mining industry incurred maximum loss due to COVID 19. At the same time, the mining industry was undergoing a transition by adopting disruptive technologies in its operations. Market volatility and a downturn in commodity prices have created a new normal where cost cuts, automation, and operational efficiency are vitally important.

Meanwhile, industry-specific issues related to regulation, geopolitical risk, legal limits on natural resource use, shareholder activism, and public scrutiny have created additional challenges. While we believe that demand for minerals will grow in the coming years, several trends will determine which types of mining companies will prevail in the future.

Mining is an ancient and global industry, with origins that date back to the foundations of civilization. The mining and metal sector contributes to 12% of the global GDP. But the industry is now facing unprecedented challenges due to the changing environment and economic situations. The depletion of the earth’s resources and the impact on the fragile environment is a growing social concern. Like many other industries, the mining and metal sectors are also changing technology, innovation, better processes, social demands, and even new opportunities.

The evolution of technology from advanced data analytics to artificial intelligence has always had the potential to transform the mining industry by ensuring operational efficiency improvements, enhancing productivity, improving safety performance, empowering employees to do more meaningful work, allowing communities to be more prosperous. The mining sector is also under pressure to reimagine its business models. Technology is not the only perspective that they hold to improve and get back on track.

Over the past decades, the mining industry has gone through a challenging scenario for its operation. Improving productivity to overcome natural factors such as decreasing ore grades, deeper deposits, and harder rock mass, combined with a rise in environmental and social awareness, has boosted the industry to work to enhance its processes constantly. In this, innovation plays a critical role as a tool to improve the efficiency of its processes to reduce cost and meet environmental norms.

The future of mining lies in indulging technology and new solutions into the industry to succeed and deliver superior values. Globally, the mining industry is under pressure to integrate innovations into core business operations. Over the years, most mining companies have also made significant investments in a range of back-end technology systems. In embracing a digital future, miners will likely need to modernize many of the legacy systems and migrate to the digital core, raising a range of considerations around moving to high-end solutions.