From paper to predictive models: Goldcorp's experience applying artificial intelligence in the mining industry
Sian Marsden, Goldcorp Inc
Two years ago Goldcorp started on a path to see how artificial intelligence (AI) could apply to the mining industry. We saw that as an industry geological data has grown in complexity with multiple software platforms housing portions of critical data making it difficult to asses all the variables associated with gold mineralization. In a partnership with IBM we have created an geoanalytical platform that can query across 80 years worth of structured and unstructured data. Furthermore, geologists using this platform can find data and solve problems 35x faster than those not using this technology. As we spent more time on this journey we added advanced predictive models that demonstrated its ability to help identify gold mineralization. This has helped in removing some of the guesswork and subjectivity from this complex process. The results are leading geologists to new levels of certainty in defining gold mineralization as they capitalize on advanced technologies to fully leverage our data assets.
