Caterpillar might not have been able to roll out its equipment in Las Vegas, NV for MINExpo in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it the company has taken advantage of the opportunity to showcase its technology to a different audience at the all-virtual CES 2021 event.

The world’s largest manufacturer of mining equipment exhibited for the first time at the CES this year to display the cutting-edge technology that the company has implemented at mine sites around the world. This video showcasing the technology was included. 

The company touted $2 billion in research and development funds and more than 16,000 active patents and roared into CES’ opening day events with its autonomous mining mega-trucks leading its pitch to potential partners.

CNET reported on Caterpillar’s involvement in the show that is usually reserved for the latest and greatest in consumer technology such as smartphones and seemed impressed with the equipment, writing, “Caterpillar's Autonomous Haul Trucks are about as tall as a two-story house and weigh a staggering 284.6 tons when empty. Fully loaded, the Cat 797F can weigh up to 687.5 tons, or as much as 15 passenger planes. 

Denise Johnson, group president of Caterpillar's Resource Industries division, said the company came to CES to step outside its reputation as a heavy-equipment manufacturer and showcase its underlying tech portfolio while attracting top-tier talent and partners in the autonomous vehicle space.

“Incorporating technology into machines and operating environments is the most important thing we can do to keep people safe. We can give machine operators better visibility to what’s around them. We can identify when they’re fatigued,” Johnson said during a Caterpillar press event Monday. “They’re already working really hard to squeeze every ounce of productivity from their operations…they can monitor machines and people, manage their performance and in many ways automate the work.”

The company is also at CES to push its latest data-sharing subscription product, MineStar Edge, which gives mining companies cloud-based access to real-time operations data built on a fusion of machine learning and AI, Johnson said.