Experts: Critical mineral resources becoming vital in strategic competition

As the global mining industry is facing increasingly severe challenges due to explosive demand for strategic minerals, an emerging market highly dependent on artificial intelligence technology is emerging, Chinese mineral researchers said.

They noted that currently, the global mining industry is facing such challenges as surface and shallow mineral deposits becoming increasingly depleted; the exploration focus is forced to shift to deeper and more complex hidden areas; the success rate of the traditional mining model relying on human experience has been consistently low, with a comprehensive success rate of less than 1 percent.

"This pain point is giving rise to an emerging market that is highly dependent on AI technology," Feng Yunduan, chairman of DeepVein Holdings, said at the ongoing 2026 Appliance and Electronics World Expo, which got underway in Shanghai on March 12.

During the expo, DeepVein showcased its full chain solution for AI-driven mineral resource exploration and development, aiming to explore the 1 trillion yuan ($144 billion) mining market that is undergoing profound changes.

In the core exploration process, DeepVein has developed a vertical AI model integrating a Mixture-of-Experts model with decades of experience data from top geologists, Feng said.

DeepVein disclosed that its model has increased the success rate significantly of mineral exploration from less than 1 percent to 50 percent in its own mining rights projects, reducing the exploration cycle of a single mining area from five years to six months, and cutting the comprehensive cost by about 75 percent.

The International Energy Agency said global demand for critical minerals is projected to nearly double by 2030 compared to the 2023 level and more than quadruple by 2050.

China has entered a new phase of industrialization characterized by high-quality development, with a growing demand for high-grade critical minerals. Critical minerals, such as rare earths, tungsten, antimony, cobalt, lithium and tantalum, play a crucial supporting role in ensuring national economic development and defense security.

"Amid the accelerating global energy transition and the deepening advancement of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, critical or strategic mineral resources have become a new focal point in the strategic competition among major economies," Li Jinfa, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former director of the China Geological Survey, said during this year's two sessions.

It has been learned that the concentrated showcase of intelligent mining technologies at the expo is closely linked to the country's continued policy support for the intelligent transformation of the mining industry.

The national mineral resources plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period is reportedly being expedited, with "integrating cutting-edge AI technologies with new quality productive forces in the mining sector" established as a core theme.

Feng said on the exploration side, DeepVein's "DeepSight Exploration" system can conduct high-precision exploration in complex environments, such as cliffs and abandoned mining areas, by using unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with multispectral, magnetic and other sensors, as well as robotic dogs with autonomous sampling capabilities.

"A robotic dog can automatically collect 30 to 50 rock samples at a time, shortening the exploration cycle by 30 percent to 50 percent and reducing the overall cost by some 40 percent," he said.

At the beneficiary stage, to address the challenge of high-value ore in the 4–10 mm size fraction being lost to tailings in traditional processes, DeepVein has integrated dual energy XRT, XRF, and AI models to enable precise identification and sorting of this size fraction.

"In a tailings project in Southeast Asia, this technology can save the mining company about 50 million yuan in grinding costs annually," Feng said.

Experts say against the backdrop of deeply integrating AI with new mining productivity in China, technology-based enterprises represented by DeepVein are standing at the forefront of this profound transformation.