Pictured (left-right) Rhonda Barnet, DIGITAL; Viviane Lapointe, MP for Sudbury; Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry; Erin Marshall, Koonkie; Theresa Quick, Novamera. Credit: DIGITAL
DIGITAL, a Vancouver-based technology supercluster, has announced investments in two Canadian-led mining innovations, totalling $6.7 million, to advance critical mineral extraction and mine restoration methods.
Oakville, Ont.-based Novamera will receive $3.8 million from DIGITAL to help progress its Surgical Mining solution, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven subsurface imaging platform for identifying ore targets. DIGITAL said that the technology is designed to reduce waste by up to 90%, depending on site conditions.
An additional $2.89 million will be invested into Koonkie Canada for its Multi‑lens Ecological Restoration Monitoring and Forecasting initiative. The deal is designed to advance a new AI platform to monitor ecological restoration and biodiversity, according to DIGITAL. Koonkie’s partners said the platform will shorten restoration timelines by five to 10 years.
“North America has no shortage of critical minerals — we have a shortage of ways to bring them into production quickly and responsibly,” said Jim Hollis, the CEO of Novamera.
Steven Hallam, the CEO and co-founder of Koonkie, added, “Ecological restoration needs better data, better forecasting and better integration of knowledge systems.”
Rhonda Barnet, the interim CEO of DIGITAL, said, “Canada needs critical minerals to strengthen our economic security and sovereignty, but we cannot rely on yesterday’s mining methods to get there.”
The combined value of the two projects is $19.9 million.
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