Artificial intelligence is transforming the global mining industry, and both the United States and China are now deploying AI-powered mining technologies across Africa, competing for access to the continent’s vast mineral wealth.
Chinese firm DeepVein Holdings has emerged as a leading player in AI mining, currently operating in five African countries — Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The company’s chairman, Feng Yunduan, explained that shallow, easily accessible mineral deposits are increasingly exhausted, forcing the industry into deeper, more dangerous, and geographically challenging terrain. To address this, DeepVein deploys fleets of robotic “machine dogs” that autonomously handle drilling, sample decomposition, and precision extraction — eliminating the need for human workers in high-risk environments such as high-altitude plateaus, extreme deserts, and tropical rainforests. This approach has also slashed soil sampling timelines from several months to just a few weeks.
On the American side, KoBold Metals — backed by billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, and widely regarded as the global leader in AI-driven mineral exploration — has invested over $200 million in mining high-grade copper at Mingomba, Zambia. The company is also expanding its exploration into Namibia and is currently the largest American enterprise operating in Zambia.
A key driver behind China’s push into African mining is the depletion of domestic mineral resources. Fu Xiaofang, a senior engineer at the Sichuan Provincial Comprehensive Geological Survey and Research Institute, noted that easily discoverable deposits in China have largely been exhausted, and even open-pit mining has become prohibitively expensive. Lithium deposits in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Sichuan, for instance, are mostly located above 4,000 meters in altitude, making extraction enormously costly due to extreme cold, low oxygen, and intense ultraviolet radiation.
Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), March 15, 2026
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202603150193.aspx