AI: The Road to an Equitable and Sustainable Cobalt Supply
Join Cobalt Institute and Stanford Mineral-X for the launch of its groundbreaking paper “Artificial Intelligence: The Road to an Equitable and Sustainable Cobalt Supply”.
Authored by renowned Stanford University Professor and Mineral-X co-founder Jef Caers, in partnership with Cobalt Institute, the paper explores how Artificial Intelligence can reshape the cobalt supply chain – from exploration to production – while advancing equity and sustainability.
- How will AI transform critical mineral exploration and today’s cobalt supply chain?
- Is autonomous AI in cobalt value chains possible and will it ever replace humans?
- What does an equitable and sustainable cobalt supply chain require?
The first paper of its kind for any critical metal, this research maps both existing and emerging AI applications across the cobalt value chain and sets out a forward-looking vision for the future.
Agenda
| Welcome Remarks – Dinah McLeod, Director General, Cobalt Institute |
| Paper Presentation – Prof. Jef Caers, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and, by courtesy, of Geophysics, Stanford University; Stanford Mineral-X Co-Founder |
| Fireside chat |
| Q&A with audience |
Speakers
Prof. Jef Caers
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and, by courtesy, of Geophysics,
Stanford University; Stanford Mineral-X Co-Founder
Jef Caers received both an MSc (’93) in mining engineering / geophysics and a PhD (’97) in mining engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Currently, he is Professor of Earth and Planetary at Stanford University, California, USA. His research interests are decision making under uncertainty in developing the critical mineral supply as well as geothermal energy required to transition to 100% renewable energy.
Jef Caers is founder of the Mineral-X, a community building effort to strengthen stewardship for a prosperous future for all, powered by Earth’s minerals. He has published in a diverse range of journals covering Mathematics, Statistics, Earth Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science. Jef Caers authored or co-authored five books entitled “Petroleum Geostatistics” (SPE, 2005) “Modeling Uncertainty in the Earth Sciences” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), “Multiple-point Geostatistics: stochastic modeling with training images” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), “Quantifying Uncertainty in Subsurface Systems (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), “Data Science for the Geosciences” (Cambridge UP, 2023). He was awarded the Krumbein Medal of the IAMG for his career achievement.
Dinah McLeod,
Director General,
Cobalt Institute
Dinah comes with a wealth of experience in sustainability and expertise in leadership, strategic planning, and membership liaison having previously served as the CEO of the Global Cement and Concrete Association where she was responsible for overseeing membership relations, external communications, policy, and strategy. Throughout her career, Dinah worked for a range of development and public policy projects at the World Bank, as well as lead business and sustainability practices at think tanks, leadership initiatives, and private sector.
A dual Canadian and British national, Dinah holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Columbia University and a Master’s degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Mineral-X is a research and innovation initiative based at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability that focuses on technological innovations to create a resilient & sustainable critical mineral supply chain. It develops new pathways in the mineral supply chain, from upstream mineral exploration to processing, in collaboration with industry partners. It develops novel data science and integrated decision-making under uncertainty across the critical mineral value chain.
