Fresh ideas will be needed to move the industry forward

Mining in the southwestern United States is at a critical crossroads said Andrea Vaccari, vice president, responsible production frameworks and sustainability for Freeport-McMoRan. She delivered the keynote address to more than 620 people at the 2025 Arizona Conference in Tucson, AZ on Dec. 8. In her speech, Vaccari touched on a number a challenges the industry is facing including finding people with the correct skill sets to help move the industry forward during a time of unprecedented change. I am sure readers of Mining Engineering are well aware that the demand for copper and other critical minerals have significantly increased. Driven by an increased focus on securing supply chains of minerals for national security as well as the global energy transition the demand is expected increase even more. To meet these challenges, Vaccari said the mining industry cannot continue to operate the way it always has.“The demand is outpacing resources. It’s outpacing labor, it’s outpacing water supply and energy,” said Vaccari. One of the most critical issues the industry faces is how to do more with less. How can the mining industry produce more minerals with fewer resources, including people? One solution is through technology such as artificial intelligence (AI). “Those IT departments that we all rely on to keep our business moving along are becoming the center of our organizations,” said Vaccari. “It is critical that we not only acknowledge that, but we might have to reorganize the way we run our companies because the reality is the traditional field of mining engineering is becoming wed with technologies like AI.” During the luncheon presentation, Pat Risner, president of South32’s Hermosa Project in Patagonia, AZ spoke at length about the autonomous fleet that will be operated at the mine site from a remote operations center in Nogales, AZ, nearly 20 miles away. “We won’t have people on most of the equipment which means about 200 of the jobs at Hermosa will be at this facility in Nogales,” Risner said. “Everyone can understand the safety advantages of having people work in an office environment as opposed to being at a mine site. And I think people can understand the advantage to the community of having less traffic to and from the mine. For us, it’s also about the workforce and the social license operate, its not just about the environmental profile of the project but its also about how our communities realize shared value in what we do. A big part of that is employment. Mining employs a lot of people. They are great jobs and life changing jobs. Part of our motivation here is to ensure that those who are most proximate to the project benefit the most from the jobs. With the use of technology and automation we can take people who don’t have mining experience and train them in about 18 months to have these jobs.” Vaccari said Freeport-McMoRan is developing a similar operation that will unite all of its mines at a centeral operating center in Phoenix. Another example of the influence of technology, specifically AI, could be found during the first ever Shark Pit competition at the SME Arizona Conference. The marriage of AI and the mining industry was on full display through the presentations of four University of Arizona students to the industry judges.Chengatai Chinyadza won the competition for her presentation about Smart Air for underground mining. A native of Zimbabwe, Chinyadza is working to utilize AI in underground mines to reduce energy consumption while improving ventilation. Chinyadza, works with the University’s mining automation and automatic system laboratory where she collaborates with many other engineers. “This is a great opportunity to get recognition of the work we are doing on ventilation and to find more collaboration to move the project forward,” she said of the SharkPit opportunity. “I hope this creates more validation for the project.” Gaurav Singh, a software engineer who was drawn to mining through an internship with Komatsu presented KeyVoids Advisor. His presentation was about an AI platform that could help steer students to the mining industry using agentic AI to generate interactive, semester-by-semester career roadmaps to align student interests with real-world industry roles. Seth Irwin presented his work on media lunas to help restore vegetation on tailings piles. He turned to “stone age answers for modern problems.” Pricilia Mugwa, who has a background in journalism and said she was drawn to the mining industry after creating a documentary on women in mining. She gave a presentation on using Smart BioFoam Barries at surface mines. The technology would use AI for dust mitigation. The SharkPit session helped showcase how the future of the mining industry will be powered by new ideas and technology. Investment in the mining industry, workforce issues, AI and machine learning, and every other topic important to the mining industry will be part of the MINEXCHANGE 2026 SME Annual Conference & Expo, to take place in Salt Lake City, UT, Feb. 22-25. Registration for the conference is now open. You can secure your spot and pick your hotel by visiting https://me.smenet.org/registration-for-minexchange-2026-sme-annual-conference-now-open/.

Fresh ideas will be needed to move the industry forward

Authored by: William Gleason

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To view the past issues of the UCA magazine you must be a member of SME/UCA.

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