Rio Tinto scales up its big data ambitions
Great story on ITNews today on how Mining Giant Rio Tinto is using technology and big data to assist in mining exploration. Rio has massive scale data requirements and storing and analysing this data is not possibly without using big data methodologies. Use of cloud based storage infrastructure such as Google, Amazon and Azure is giving Rio the edge.
As an example, Rio’s 900 Haul Trucks generate almost 5TB of data each day providing the information to defer hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance costs.
Rio calls it the "Mine of the Future" program and in addition to cloud based storage Rio has a centre in Brisbane called the Processing Centre of Excellence (PEC), which uses big data analytics to process this data.
The company is also one of the biggest users of autonomous technology in the resources sector, including driver-less trucks and unmanned aerial systems.