Amazon utilising Rio Tinto's breakthrough copper tech for data centres

(Sharecast News) - Amazon on Thursday announced a new partnership with Rio Tinto that will it become the first customer of the mining group's pioneering copper-extracting methods to deploy copper in its data centres. The two-year agreement, between Amazon Web Services and Rio's Nuton Technology, will see AWS use copper produced by Nuton's groundbreaking bioleaching technology from the Gunnison Copper's Johnson Camp mine in Arizona.

The copper will be used for things like electrical cables and busbars, windings in transformers and motors, printed circuit boards, and heat sinks on processors.

In return, AWS will provide cloud-based data and analytics support to "accelerate the optimisation" of Nuton tech at Johnson Camp.

Nuton's tech is able to utilise low-grade copper deposits previously classified as waste, producing 99.99% pure copper cathode at the mine gate, which removes the need for traditional concentrators, smelters and refineries.

The process also uses subtantially less water and has lower carbon emissions than traditional methods, and supports Amazon's climate pledge to reach net zero carbon by 2040, the tech giant said.

"This collaboration is a powerful example of how industrial innovation and cloud technology can combine to deliver cleaner, lower-carbon materials at scale," said Rio's copper chief executive Katie Jackson.

"Nuton has already proven its ability to rapidly move from idea to industrial production, and AWS's data and analytics expertise will help us to accelerate optimisation and verification across operations."