Canada’s mining sector is coming together virtually through the Canadian Digital Core Library, helping to build a national AI platform of Canadian geological data. It’s a national initiative to digitize physical geological drill core samples and make them accessible through an AI-ready platform. Laurentian University is partnering on the project with Creative Destruction Lab, a startup program, on an AI database aimed at spurring the growth of the mining industry in Canada. Creative Destruction Lab CEO Sonia Sennik said they are creating a digital database of mining deposits in the north that will feed into “a central platform that can then aggregate all the different data from across the country.” “We’ll continue to have our repositories in the core in the locations that they are,” Sennik said. “But the digital versions of the core can actually live together in one spot.” Laurentian University is part of the research team on the project and will be receiving up to $1 million in federal funding for its work on the nationwide project. ‘It’s great research’ “It’s great research,” said Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe. “We already have that infrastructure of expertise and research and innovation right here at Laurentian University … I’m so pleased that they are the university of this project.” Politicians and industry experts have said that the digital bank will help Canada’s mining sector show the value of investing in Canada’s critical minerals sector -- locally and internationally. Claude Guay, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, said the library will reduce the time it takes to develop new mines. “I think this Canadian digital core library will allow people to find (and) analyze data so that they can actually go and explore and drill at the best place faster,” Guay said. “It helps (to shorten) the whole cycle of exploration … and therefore attract capital compared to other places in the world.” Sennik said the data will show critical mineral deposits and opportunities of previously discovered and new mining locations from coast to coast to coast.
