While the market continues to speculate over the possibility of a merger between Rio Tinto (RIO 0.67%) and Glencore, the news of a strategically important deal between Amazon (AMZN 1.38%) Web Services (AWS) and Rio Tinto appears to have fallen off the radar. However, discerning investors shouldn't ignore this deal because it could spark game-changing developments for Rio Tinto, artificial intelligence (AI), and the data center industry.
Rio Tinto and Amazon Web Services agree on a strategic collaboration
In the end, it's very simple. Amazon Web Services is a dominant force in cloud computing and AI, and it needs data centers to host data and provide computing power. In turn, data centers need copper for their infrastructure. In fact, S&P Global believes that AI and defense will boost copper demand by 50% by 2040, creating a significant shortfall.
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If you are bullish on copper, you could buy more of a pure-play copper company, such as Freeport-McMoRan, but the recent deal with AWS makes Rio Tinto an intriguing option as well.
The deal involves AWS becoming Rio Tinto's first customer for copper produced using a revolutionary new "Nuton" technology, which has been under development for 20 years. Nuton is a proprietary bioleaching process used to recover copper from stockpiles of already mined material. It's a two-year agreement, and given that it's a relatively low-carbon-emitting activity, the copper AWS acquires from bioleaching at the Johnson Camp copper mine will help it meet its carbon-emissions goals.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why the deal is revolutionary
The agreement is also a demonstration of industry innovation, using a technology that literally relies on cosmic rays from supernovas. To 3D map the highly structured stockpiles and ensure the bioleaching material reaches the right places, Rio Tinto will use muon detection technology.
Muons are created in collisions between cosmic rays and molecules in Earth's atmosphere. They travel almost at the speed of light and constantly hit the Earth. By placing muon receptors beneath the stockpile, engineers can model the stockpile based on how muons travel through the stockpile as different materials absorb different amounts of energy from the muons as they (muons) pass through.
Image source: Getty Images.
How AWS is helping Rio Tinto develop Nuton technology
However, the agreement isn't just about securing copper for AWS; Rio Tinto will use the AWS platform to model and simulate leaching in the stockpile and to optimize the bioleaching process.
That's important because Rio Tinto has signed a five-year deal with muon technology company Ideon Technologies to help identify copper and iron ore assets. As such, the strategic collaboration is a kind of technology blueprint for Rio Tinto's future use of Nuton and muon technology. That could revolutionize mining and help ensure adequate copper supplies for data centers' needs, as AWS and other hyperscalers work to address the problem.
