By Michelle Carey, Chief, Digital Earth Knowledge at IMDEX with extensive experience leading product development and innovation in mining technology.
Datarock is an IMDEX Leading Brand and will be fully acquired by IMDEX on 1 February 2026. Datarock will be a core focus of IMDEX’s Digital Earth Knowledge business unit under the leadership of Michelle Carey. Digital Earth Knowledge is a core part of IMDEX’s strategy to create a unified, digital-first approach to orebody knowledge – integrating decades of geoscience expertise with advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics.
Another IMARC wrapped up last month, and the conversations on AI and innovation funding were exactly what this industry needs: honest, practical, and realistic.
Systems thinking, not point solutions
The Augmenting Digitisation and AI Effectively panel highlighted something that keeps coming up: the difference between tools and solutions matter more than ever. Tools offer isolated capabilities. Solutions integrate those capabilities into workflows and solve real customer problems.
Here’s the risk: if we drop AI into one part of the system without considering downstream impacts, we just shift bottlenecks elsewhere. Everyone wants AI to drive faster decisions, but if the next stakeholder can’t actually use the output, it’s useless.
Take our BLASTDOG™ example. This product plays a critical role in capturing and delivering subsurface data. If AI-generated insights from tools like this don’t integrate seamlessly into an engineer’s existing workflow, we’ve simply shifted the problem. AI must support the entire workflow—not just optimise a single step.
Where AI actually makes sense
We also talked about where AI fits best – processes that are repetitive, data-rich, and tolerant of some error. That’s a narrower scope than the hype would suggest.
The challenge is choosing the right applications: pre-drilling exploration is tough because there’s not enough quality training data. But in a well-instrumented, long-running operation, AI can add real value.
We also need to plan for change. Models drift, and what works today may not work tomorrow. That’s not a reason to avoid AI, it’s a reason to design for evergreening and long-term technical resilience.
Shared accountability for change
One consistent theme was workforce readiness. People are apprehensive about technology-driven change, especially when rationale is lacking. If AI is rolled out without proper change management, adoption will stall.
We as technology providers need to own our share of that challenge. In a market with declining technical skills, simply telling mining companies to ‘get better at change’ won’t work. Real success comes from embedding solutions with customers, partnering differently, and taking joint responsibility for adoption, not just deployment.
How we think about R&D and capital
The funding conversation was refreshingly realistic. Most mining tech development isn’t venture-backed; it’s industry-led, with funding models better suited to mining’s pace.
At IMDEX, we consistently invest 8–10% of revenue into R&D, through every cycle. That consistency builds capacity for the upturns. Our approach has three pillars: build the right products, execute with disciplined stage gates, and use targeted M&A to accelerate or fill capability gaps.
Adoption is a real challenge
A key takeaway from the week was that adoption, not development, is usually the hardest part. Mining technology companies and miners need to share accountability for change, and having technical teams embedded into operations helps. But we also need to make sure the right ownership structure is in place – too many voices can slow progress.
Putting strategy into practice
This build–buy–collaborate approach isn’t theory. IMDEX’s acquisition of Datarock shows how we can complement organic R&D with strategic M&A to move faster and stay focused on solving real mining problems. Since 2016, Datarock has been working to enhance their AI and machine learning capabilities, allowing miners to go from raw data to decisions, faster. Their goal wasn’t to build everything, it was to deliver integrated, usable solutions that matter most to the customer.
Australia’s mining innovation ecosystem is now mature enough to connect miners, tech developers, and test environments effectively. Traditionally, mining has been seen as being ‘behind’ other sectors like energy. AI acts as a leveller in this space – we’re all adopting at the same pace and that opens the door to leapfrog ahead.
The opportunity is real, but success depends on systems thinking, partnership, and a relentless focus on solving our customers problems.
