Initial long-term mining enterprise contracts signify a new phase in the life of rising Canadian tech star, Ideon Technologies. They also underline the industry’s growing connection with a subsurface imaging method BHP says enables it “to scan and map [mineral] deposits faster and more accurately than before”.
The resources giant says AI algorithms are helping turn traditional mineral exploration and extraction upside down. “Cutting-edge work continues within our business as teams shift their focus to muon tomography,” BHP says.
Ideon was formed on the back of development of the world’s first muon detectors for subsurface mineral exploration by Canada’s national particle physics laboratory, TRIUMF, in the 2000s. It merged that work with the appetite of Silicon Valley and other North American investors for “critical minerals” tech that only started to surface in the past decade. Ideon transforms cosmic-ray muon tomography data into 3D and 4D maps with an increasingly sophisticated and high-powered array of tools.
The Vancouver-based company has worked extensively with BHP, Rio Tinto and other mining tier ones and twos in the past five years but has not yet named its maiden enterprise agreement partners.
