It’s groundbreaking technology. Pic: Getty Images<\/p>\n
The brains behind Microsoft\u2019s bid to build a\u00a0quantum computer<\/a>\u00a0within three years is also helping BHP dig more copper out of the ground to wire everything from electric cars to data centres.<\/p>\n Copper demand has exploded \u2013 used in hotplates to EVs, solar panels and the most advanced AI \u2018factories\u2019. It is also found virtually everywhere in the Earth\u2019s crust. But the easy ore is mostly gone, prompting BHP to take a radically different approach.<\/p>\n Microsoft has provided it with its most advanced artificial intelligence tools to pull copper from low grade rock, which is notoriously difficult. This type of rock normally contains about 1 per cent copper, requiring massive amounts of energy and chemical processing.<\/p>\n BHP turned to Microsoft Discovery, the division spearheading the tech titan\u2019s quantum computing push. It now halved its timeline to build a working quantum computer, saying a machine will be ready by 2029.<\/p>\n This is possible thanks to its new Majorana 2 chip, unveiled at Microsoft\u2019s Build developer conference in Seattle this week, and quantum chemistry, which is also helping BHP become more efficient and provide the core material needed to wire the AI boom.<\/p>\n BHP\u2019s copper sits deep, spread thin and bonded tight to the minerals around it. Freeing it means leaching \u2013 a hydrometallurgical process that dissolves the metal so solvent extraction can draw it off \u2013 and a better reagent rewrites the economics of every deposit the industry has written off.<\/p>\n Working with Microsoft and computational chemists at Prescience Insilico, BHP ran tens of thousands of quantum chemistry calculations to narrow half a million molecules called reagents to a shortlist now facing the bench in Australian laboratories.<\/p>\n The job ran on Microsoft Discovery, an Azure platform made generally available on Wednesday that deploys teams of \u2018\u2018agentic\u2019 AI to mimic the scientific method.<\/p>\n \u201cCopper is everywhere, from electric vehicles to solar panels, wind turbines and grid infrastructure,\u201d said BHP vice-president of innovation Jessica Farrell.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch of the critical infrastructure and enablers of the energy transition require copper.\u201d<\/p>\n The reagent hunt is a problem chemists have chipped at for a generation.<\/p>\n Ms Farrell said using AI was \u201cincreasing our speed, freeing up our technical experts to do more thoughtful analysis, and it\u2019s increasing our chances of success\u201d.<\/p>\n But the BHP project used AI, not a quantum chip. Still, modelling how molecules behave, atom by atom, is the exact problem a fault-tolerant quantum machine is built to crack.<\/p>\n Microsoft says the Majorana 2 processor\u2019s qubits are 1,000 times more reliable than the chip it built a year ago.<\/p>\n It brings a scalable quantum computer, which has been a decade away for decades, now set to be available in just a few years.<\/p>\n