Rio Tinto and Amazon Web Services collaborate for low-carbon copper in U.S.

Rio Tinto (RIO) announced a strategic collaboration with Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, or AWS, that will see AWS become Nuton Technology’s first customer following the industrial-scale deployment of the bioleaching technology at the Johnson Camp copper mine in the U.S. last month. Under the two-year agreement, AWS will use the first Nuton copper ever produced in components of its U.S. data centres, while also providing cloud-based data and analytics support to accelerate the optimisation of Nuton’s proprietary bioleaching technology at Gunnison Copper’s Johnson Camp mine. Data centres use copper in a wide variety of applications, including electrical cables and busbars, windings in transformers and motors, printed circuit boards, and heat sinks on processors. Nuton is also utilising AWS platforms to simulate heap-leach performance and feed advanced analytics into Nuton’s decision systems. Its modular bioleaching system works by extracting copper from primary sulphide ores using naturally occurring microorganisms. The process produces 99.99% pure copper cathode at the mine gate and removes the need for traditional concentrators, smelters and refineries.