Botswana Diamonds, an Irish exploration company, has plans to utilise artificial intelligence technology to aid their efforts in locating new diamond sources, the company announced. The company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is aiming to apply this advanced technology to their database, which holds the second-largest collection of diamond exploration data in Botswana.
The company will use a mineral prospectivity technology known as Xplore, created by Planetary AI. This innovative AI technology merges machine learning with semantic technology, which is focused on interpreting and illustrating data and intelligence in a machine-readable format. It essentially leads to machinery operating almost like a geologist in terms of understanding geological data in context. This helps in pinpointing potential zones for mineralisation quickly and efficiently, based on predetermined mineral deposit models.
John Teeling, the Chairman of the company stated that their mineral database in Botswana encompasses an immense amount of data that is too large to analyse promptly and efficiently by humans. The database consists of over 375,000 kms of geophysical data, and 32,000 drill holes logs.
Computer-based large data models and artificial intelligence techniques which can handle and analyse substantial amounts of data in a short span of time sync well with their extensive database. The models and results are created and produced based on both theoretical and factual existing knowledge that is inputted. The technique constantly adapts itself when it comes across gaps or inconsistencies in the data, and this capability can be significantly beneficial in the field of mineral exploration in the future, according to Mr Teeling.
The AI system will analyse several different minerals which could possibly facilitate the discovery of other deposits. Mr Teeling expressed his belief that there are more diamond deposits lying undiscovered beneath the sand, and now this system allows for the potential identification of other such deposits.