As global demand for minerals and metals only intensifies, mining companies are turning to AI-powered solutions to enhance exploration accuracy, automate equipment, predict maintenance needs, help increase safety, and optimize energy use. Meeting net-zero targets is expected to require around 700,000 new workers in the critical minerals extraction industry by 2030, an 88% increase from 2022 levels.1 This is one area where AI comes in—82% of leaders say they’re confident that they’ll use digital labor to expand workforce capacity in the next 12 to 18 months.2
As the mining industry undergoes its digital and AI transformation, Microsoft remains committed to delivering innovative and secure solutions. From adopting AI and agents to streamlining business processes and unlocking efficiency to moving legacy systems to the cloud—we’re dedicated to working together towards a powerful and sustainable future of mining.
AI transformation for a more resilient future of mining
As we are seeing across the energy and resources industry, the mining sector is facing growing pressure to support the global energy transition, with AI emerging as a prominent solution. With demand for critical minerals expected to quadruple by 20403, AI can help mining companies locate and extract resources more efficiently, with studies showing potential reductions of 20% to 30% in the time and cost of mineral discovery.4
From early stage exploration to downstream processing and logistics, AI has the potential to be embedded throughout the mining value chain. In upstream operations, it can enhance mineral prospectivity mapping, resource estimation, and production planning. Downstream, it can optimize ore blending, recovery, and processing. Even side streams like supply chain logistics are beginning to see gains, as AI-powered efficiencies ripple across operations. And in exploration, AI unlocks insights from vast geoscientific datasets—both legacy and real-time—enabling faster, more accurate decision-making.
The possibilities for AI use cases in the mining sector are abundant, and there are ways for organizations embarking on their digital transformation journey to get started today—such as with workforce productivity. AI adoption in this context is a powerful step towards the future of work, and Ma’aden, a mining company in Saudi Arabia, is a prime example of that. Ma’aden used Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to help employees be more productive in daily tasks, like getting quick answers on policies, summarizing content, and drafting presentations, emails, and meeting minutes. Ma’aden saw enhanced productivity, with Copilot users saving up to 2,200 hours monthly.
In addition to workforce productivity, Microsoft AI solutions are also enabling operational transformation, as seen in Sandvik’s approach to equipment optimization. Sandvik created a cloud-based service solution that uses data and AI to generate insights on the state of their machines to support the optimization of the operation of equipment. Powered by Microsoft Azure Cloud and its analytics and AI services, the solution uses data to produce actionable insights into equipment performance and status—helping to drive transformation across its business.
Foundations for AI-driven transformation in mining
Unlocking potential: Bringing the cloud to mining operations
As the mining industry advances efficiency, safety, and sustainability goals, the adaptive cloud has emerged as a critical piece of this journey. Microsoft’s adaptive cloud approach uses cloud-native and AI technologies across hybrid, multi-cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. By making operational technology (OT) cloud-enabled, mining organizations can unlock real-time insights, streamline operations, and enhance resilience. This union of cloud and OT supports smarter decision-making and predictive maintenance, and lays the foundation for innovation and scalability.
Boliden offers a compelling example of how cloud infrastructure can modernize mining operations at scale. The Swedish mining company needed to automate and centralize data collection, increase visibility across processes, and add new ways to analyze information. Boliden monitors the Garpenberg site with a network of 500 cameras that give management teams oversight of the mines, wells, and operations, helping to keep an eye on productivity and safety. The company now uses a combination of Microsoft Azure IoT Edge and Microsoft Azure IoT Hub to connect the cameras with other Boliden systems and the rest of its IoT network, which consists of thousands of sensors above and below ground, along with other devices. By working with a flexible, fully featured cloud infrastructure, the company can now bring more productivity and safety to all their sites.
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) also exemplifies how adaptive cloud infrastructure can overcome the limitations of traditional on-premises environments to support scalable, intelligent operations. EGA deployed a hybrid environment that connected private cloud services through on-premises datacenters. Deploying a hybrid environment helped to optimize latency, support advanced AI and automation solutions, offer sustaining commercial savings by applying intelligence at the edge, and streamline processing for massive amounts of real-time readings from sensors, machinery, and production lines.
Learn more about energy and resources solutions with Microsoft
No matter what your organization’s digital transformation may look like, Microsoft is committed to helping to drive progress in the mining industry and working to grow sustainable, secure, AI-powered businesses. Microsoft has always been built on trust and a robust security suite, and is committed to prioritizing security in the design, build, and operation of our products and services. To take a deeper dive into cybersecurity in the age of generative AI and building a foundation for AI-powered transformation in mining, read our latest e-book.
1 Tracking the Trends 2025 | Deloitte US, Deloitte 2025
2 2025: The Year the Frontier Firm Is Born, Microsoft, April 2025
Joseph Starwood
Worldwide Mining Industry Leader, Microsoft
Mr. Starwood serves as Worldwide Mining Industry Leader at Microsoft. He works with mining clients to align enterprise capabilities with business strategies to transform business models and operational processes and to realize value from technology investments and assets. He is a thought-leader on the Digital Sustainable Mine of the Future and his work utilizes digital twins, AI, industrial metaverse, edge computing, and more.
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