Bbabsal Mines and MinersAI Partner to Advance AI-Driven Copper and Cobalt Exploration in Zambia

The partnership brings together a VC-backed geoscience AI platform and a Zambian-led copper and cobalt operator, advancing data-driven exploration in one of the world’s most significant copper and cobalt regions.

Partnership Announced

Bbabsal Mines Ltd and MinersAI have formalised a strategic partnership to apply artificial intelligence and advanced geoscience analytics to Zambia's copper and cobalt resources.

The collaboration brings together two organisations with complementary capabilities and a shared conviction: the gap between geological data and actionable investment decisions is one of the most solvable and valuable problems in modern mining.

About MinersAI

MinersAI, co-founded in 2023 by Mason Dykstra and Thomas-Louis de Lophem, builds what its team describes as the foundational data layer for AI in geoscience. The platform aggregates, standardises and encodes geological, geochemical and geophysical data from historical records, national surveys and current exploration projects – using AI and human-in-the-loop architectures to structure and analyze all the data within a single environment.

The company, backed by leading venture capital investors, has run exploration projects with junior and major mining companies as well as governments internationally. Its CEO Mason Dykstra holds a doctorate in geology and brings direct experience running geoscience technology programmes at Anadarko Petroleum and Statoil.

MinersAI's platform enables pattern recognition across large data volumes, reduces interpretive uncertainty, and allows exploration teams to make faster, more confident decisions without requiring large in-house data science teams.

About Bbabsal Mines Ltd

Bbabsal Mines Ltd is a Zambian-led copper and cobalt supplier with operations centred on the Copperbelt and North-Western Province of Zambia. The company holds three government-allocated exploration licences and operates a vertically integrated model spanning exploration, development and export.

Bbabsal Mines supplies customers across North America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, with a commitment to ESG-aligned practices, community investment and transparency throughout the supply chain.

What the Partnership Delivers

Under the partnership, MinersAI's analytical models will be applied to Bbabsal Mines' exploration portfolio, with initial focus on three areas:

• Resource characterisation: improving the accuracy and confidence of geological models across active licence areas

• Exploration intelligence: identifying high-potential zones within the portfolio using AI-driven pattern analysis of historical and current datasets

• Investor-grade reporting: producing more transparent, data-supported resource assessments for financing and investor communications

Zambia's Critical Mineral Opportunity

Zambia produced 890,346 metric tonnes of copper in 2025, up from 825,513 tonnes in 2024, ranking it as Africa's second-largest copper producer. Together with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia is at the centre of a cross-border strategy for battery and EV supply chains, with active government support for intelligent, value-adding mineral development.

The country's cobalt resources are increasingly important to battery technology manufacturers and semiconductor supply chains globally.

Well-capitalised operators have begun deploying similar approaches in Zambia, using machine learning and geoscience data to advance major copper discoveries and improve resource definition.

This partnership focuses on deploying AI-powered geoscience capabilities at an earlier stage, in a significantly more capital-efficient way.

Looking Ahead

Both organisations will take a phased approach to implementation, with further project-specific updates expected as the collaboration progresses.

The partnership reflects a broader shift towards data-driven, capital-efficient exploration in critical mineral markets.

Media enquiries:

Bbabsal Mines Ltd: adrian@bbabsalmines.com

MinersAI: mason@minersai.com