Shanghai. Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co. is bringing mining technology to a new level by introducing the use of artificial intelligence to significantly increase operational safety and boost productivity.

The intelligent mining system requires 5G networks to transfer millions of real-time data including high-definition videos and pictures from underground works run by machines or robots to human operators above ground every day.

“This technology allows operators to work in the comfort and safety of the air-conditioned command center above the ground,” Jack Chen, Huawei’s Vice President in charge of the coal mine corps, told a small group of Indonesian journalists during a recent gathering in Shanghai.

His explanations were mostly very technical but basically, when intelligent mining is implemented, Huawei will install thousands of 5G base stations and underground cameras and activate Huawei’s Mine Harmony operating system to integrate a lot of protocols.

The operating system was launched jointly by Huawei and China Energy Investment Group in September 2021.

“We use big data and cloud computing similar to AI which will conduct intelligent analytics upon which decisions are made,” he said.

The integrated system solves many major IT problems facing the mining industry such as poor underground Wi-Fi coverage, low bandwidth, and limited network scalability, he said.

Chen claimed that Huawei’s intelligent mining has been successfully trialed in China, which has more than 3,000 operational coal mines and more than 2.8 million workers in the industry. 

Huawei has been collaborating with Hongliulin Coal Mine and Xiaobaodang Coal Mine in the northwestern Chinese province of Shaanxi to implement intelligent mining based on their specific needs for over a year.

These trials resulted in a remarkable reduction of up to 40 percent in the number of underground workers.

Additionally, Huawei is actively developing autonomous driving technology for heavy machinery and trucks employed in open-pit mines.

To enable intelligent collaboration between the control center, 5G base stations, cameras, radars, GPS, and mining machinery, this technology relies on a converged internet protocol network.

Chen expressed his hope that Indonesian companies operating open-pit coal mines would eventually benefit from Huawei's intelligent mining technology.

Ge Shirong, President of China University of Mining and Technology, wrote in an article that dozens of coal mines in China have established 5G-powered Mining Internet of Things (MIoT) which enables them to “remotely operate the long wall cutting and tunneling with a single click start”.