Jeff Bezos And Bill Gates Backed Mining Firm, Kobold Metals To Begin Greenland Drilling

Mineral Exploration Company and a developer of machine prospector technology intended to facilitate a search for cobalt ore locations digitally, Kobold Metals, has in recent times been famed for the application of modern artificial intelligence and cloud computing techniques to predict the composition of the subsurface. And it is no news that two world renowned billionaires, Jezz Bezos of Amazon and Bill Gates from Microsoft are backing the mineral exploration quest of the company.

The AI-powered mineral exploration company who raised $192.5m in a Series B round in February this year has in a statement on Thursday announced that it would begin drilling in Greenland for critical materials used in electric vehicles.

Silicon Valley-based KoBold, a firm that is known for using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques (ML) to collect data to hunt for raw materials used in EVs, had  last year secured a 51 percent stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project on Greenland’s west coast, operated by London-listed Bluejay Mining.

The Disko-Nuussuaq intends to use drones to make a high-resolution magnetic survey of the area, as it plans to drill 3,000 metres this year.

“The objective is to target massive nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals,” Bluejay Mining Chief Executive Bo Steensgaard said in a statement.

The Invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the associated sanctions by the western world against the Vladimir Putin-led country had caused a more than double increase in prices of nickel, used in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries, as Russia supplies about 10% of the world’s nickel needs.

“The recent unfortunate geopolitical developments clearly show that the Western world needs new deposits of these critical metals,” Steensgaard said.

KoBold, a privately-held company had its principal investors including a climate and technology fund backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, known as ‘Breakthrough Energy Ventures’, Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The CEO of KoBold, Kurt House while announcing the drilling said:

“Fully electrifying the global economy is our generation’s greatest challenge. To accomplish that lofty goal we must accelerate our efforts to find the key materials for the electric vehicle revolution,” he said.

KoBold also has other investors like the Silicon Valley venture capital fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Norwegian state-controlled energy company, Equinor, and Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.