The emerging science of finding critical metals | Mfikeyi Makayi - TED Talks Daily

Summary of TED Talks Daily: "The Emerging Science of Finding Critical Metals"

Speaker: Mfikeyi Makayi
Date: September 24, 2025
Host: TED Talks Daily

Episode Overview

This episode features mining innovator Mfikeyi Makayi presenting at the TED Countdown Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. Makayi addresses the pressing global need for critical metals—like lithium, copper, cobalt, and nickel—to power the transition to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and a circular economy. She explores the shortcomings of current mining exploration practices and introduces breakthrough AI-aided technologies developed by her team at Cobalt, aimed at making mining more efficient, sustainable, and socially responsible.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundation: Why We Need Critical Metals

Makayi begins by grounding the need for metals in everyday life, from copper earrings and mobile phones to wind turbines and electric vehicles.
- Quote [02:59]:
  “Everything we build and use was either grown or mined, from the walls to the windows, the tables and the chairs, your phones, your computers, the stage, my copper earrings, and maybe your jewelry.” — Mfikeyi Makayi
The shift toward a clean, circular economy depends on abundant access to recyclable materials and the construction of over 400 new mines by 2040.

2. Exploration vs. Innovation Gap in Mining

Makayi draws attention to a startling disparity: for every dollar mining companies return to shareholders, less than a penny is spent on exploration—a stark contrast to sectors like pharmaceuticals and tech.
- Quote [04:12]:
  “In mining, however, for every dollar returned to shareholders, less than a penny is spent in exploration.” — Mfikeyi Makayi
As a result, technological innovation in mining exploration has stagnated, and discovering new ore bodies has become ten times less effective over the past 30 years.

3. The Challenge: It’s Not Scarcity, It’s Information

Most ore deposits aren't gone—they're simply deeper underground or hidden from easy detection.
The real crisis is a lack of information. Traditional geoscience modeling is limited by under-sampling and two-dimensional data projected onto three-dimensional realities.

4. Predictive Technology: AI & Machine Learning in Mining

Makayi and her team at Cobalt are revolutionizing exploration by using machine learning to generate and simulate thousands of possible underground rock formations based on limited data—dramatically accelerating and improving predictions.
- Quote [06:05]:
  “We're developing machine learning technologies that helps us predict all of this and rigorously quantify our uncertainties in these predictions.” — Mfikeyi Makayi
Their AI models help determine where best to collect new data by identifying where prediction uncertainty is highest, optimizing spending and reducing waste.

5. Rethinking Mine Design: Embracing Uncertainty

Conventional mining plans are based on a single (often flawed) model of what's underground.
The new “Cobo Mine” optimization tool compares many possible ore body geometries and mine designs, maximizing ore recovery, minimizing waste and water use, and improving cash flow projections.
- Quote [09:35]:
  “This enables the best decisions about how much ore we're going to mine, how much waste we're going to produce, how much water we'll use, the cash flows and so on.” — Mfikeyi Makayi

6. Triple Bottom Line: Profitability, Safety, Sustainability

Enhanced geologic predictions support smarter, safer, and more environmentally-friendly operations.
More accurate models foster resilient mining operations that can better serve local communities, withstand market shifts, and reduce their environmental footprint.
- Quote [10:34]:
  “Better predictions don't just mean profitability, it means a safer mine knowing where the rocks are weaker. It means an environmentally sustainable mine so we can lessen our impact on the environment.” — Mfikeyi Makayi

7. Zambia as a Model: The Mingomba Project

Makayi highlights the Mingomba project in Zambia as a blueprint for the future, bringing together local and global talent and leveraging their advanced technologies “to design and develop a mine based on our predictions, for which we've only sampled a tiny fraction of rock.”
- Quote [10:49]:
  “Our Mingomba project in Zambia will be the mine of the future. It's being designed and developed by amazing talent from around the world, including Zambians and Africans like myself.” — Mfikeyi Makayi

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“We don't lack ore body deposits, we lack information of where they lie.” — Mfikeyi Makayi [05:00]
“We’ve invented a different way. We collect all the possibilities consistent with the data measured... We do this 10,000 times faster by training an AI to learn the relevant physics...” — Mfikeyi Makayi [06:53]
Audience Challenge [07:42]: Makayi asks listeners to imagine predicting the copper concentration 1,000 meters below—right where they're sitting, and then for their neighbor, across the room, or in another city—underscoring the immense challenge of limited data.
Vision for Mining’s Future [11:04]: “The mining industry must ensure they transform so we can become responsible miners and build better mines with better technology. Asante and thank you.” — Mfikeyi Makayi

Important Timestamps

02:56 – Makayi begins: personal background, mining’s foundational role in society
04:12 – The critical underinvestment in exploration vs. other industries
05:10 – The real issue: information, not resource scarcity
06:05 – Introduction to AI and prediction technology in exploration
07:42 – Audience challenge: demonstrating the scale and uncertainty of subsurface prediction
09:25 – Cobo Mine: AI-powered mine design, planning for uncertainty
10:34 – Benefits: safety, resilience, environmental responsibility
10:49 – The Mingomba Project and future outlook

Conclusion

Mfikeyi Makayi offers both an urgent call and an optimistic vision for the mining industry: harnessing data, AI, and new thinking not only to find the metals that will fuel humanity's greener future, but to do so with responsibility, inclusion, and sustainability at the core. Her team’s innovations are setting a new global standard, and their work in Zambia exemplifies how technology and thoughtful stewardship can transform even the most traditional industries.

Transcript

A (0:00)

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D (1:21)

Support for TED Talks Daily comes from the Financial Times. Every day brings an avalanche of headlines. Some are noise, some are designed to distract. So how do you know what's worth your attention? That's where the Financial Times comes in. The FT's journalism delivers clarity, depth and independence. No spin, no hidden agenda, just reporting you can trust. It's why leaders in business, policy and culture rely on the FT as their source of understanding of what's happening now and what's coming next. So if you want to see the bigger picture and truly grasp why it counts, stay informed with the Financial Times. Source Understanding Source Clarity Source ft you're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Electric vehicles are exploding in popularity and use all over the world, and yet all of these EVs need rare earth minerals in order to work, and those minerals need to be mined industry, which is not exactly known for its sustainable practices. In her talk, mining innovator Mfikey Makayi shares how her team is looking to build the sustainable mine of the future using radical new AI aided technology that maximizes resource recovery while minimizing environmental impact.

E (2:56)

I was born and raised in Zambia, a country known for its rich copper mining history. Alignment of the stars meant that by birth and by science, I became a miner. Everything we build and use was either grown or mined, from the walls to the windows, the tables and the chairs, your phones, your computers, the stage, my copper earrings, and maybe your jewelry. So today, when we talk about building a circular economy, we mean we need to electrify everything. Our economies will have cars and trucks, robots, drones and aircraft powered by batteries. Our children will need computers in all schools with equal access. And we'll have data centers full of advanced chips to bring us AI, all sourced by abundant sources of renewable energy. The raw materials we'll need will be recyclable so we can become clean and circular. So that means a lot more lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, and others. So we need to build more than 400 new mines by 2040 for us to become circular. But before you can build a mine, you have to find the raw materials. The thing is, today's mining industry leaders are doing too little to advance our qualities of life. In other industries that rely on discovery for growth, like pharmaceuticals and technology, for every dollar they return to shareholders, they spend about a dollar in R& D in mining. However, for every dollar returned to shareholders, less than a penny is spent in exploration. With such underinvestment, it shouldn't surprise you that the technology used in exploration and mining has barely advanced. In fact, we've gotten 10 times worse in the last 30 years at making ore body discoveries. But there's good news. The vast majority of ore deposits are still out there, waiting to be found. They're just harder to find. Of all the past mines we know of, they were easy because they were poking out of the surface and they were near the surface. So we need to look deeper. Controversially, we've been taught that these materials will run out. We don't lack oral body deposits, we lack information of where they lie. So if you had a crystal ball, you'd just look into it and start digging out the rocks that are the best and generate the least waste. But we don't have a crystal ball. So the thing that we should do is make predictions of where these materials lie. My colleagues and I at Cobalt are doing what the industry has neglected to do. We aim to predict everything, quantify what we don't know, and collect information efficiently. So we're all going to try that. Right now. I'd want you to predict 1,000 meters below your feet what the concentration of copper is right where you're sitting. I want you to predict how hard it is, how fractured it is, what's its density. We aim to Predict all these things and more. We're developing machine learning technologies that helps us predict all of this and rigorously quantify our uncertainties in these predictions. So what does this look like in practice? When we're exploring for mines, we often fly aircraft thousands of kilometers across the Earth to try collect information, such as the Earth's magnetism, its gravitational field, that tells us something about the rocks beneath. But there's a problem. For everything that we're looking at, there are going to be an infinite number of possibilities, and that's because we're building three dimensional models to fit two dimensional data. So if a body was smaller and closer to the surface, or larger and further away, the measurement would be the same. The incumbent industry deals with this problem by ignoring it. They pick one possible answer and act like the other ones don't exist. And as a result, we design suboptimal mines, make suboptimal decisions, often mining unnecessary material. We've invented a different way. We collect all the possibilities consistent with the data measured. And we do this by simulating the physical response of each of the arrangement of rocks. We do this 10,000 times faster by training an AI to learn the relevant physics of the rock beneath in the time it takes the conventional method to test one. That means we collect better data, we make better predictions of where to look next. So if you had a rock body and a rock body that's denser than material around it, you might drill through the middle of it. But if you have all the hundreds of thousands of possible solutions, the best thing you can do is to collect data where you're the most uncertain and rigorously eliminate as many possibilities as possible. This enables us to maximize the information we get for every dollar we spend. And we do this repeatedly so we can quantify our uncertainties. Even after we've made an ore body discovery, we still have to contend with this uncertainty. We have to define the size and shape of this ore body. Let me illustrate how difficult this is. So now, 1,000 meters below your feet, you drilled, you sampled the rock and you determined that it has 5% copper. So now you know, you've got your data point and your observation. Now I ask you to make a prediction of the concentration of copper of the person sitting next to you. What would your prediction be and how confident would you be in your prediction? What about across the room? Think of any person across this room and try predict 1000 meters below them. What about in the next building or the next city? This is the vast challenge that we face. We've only sampled a tiny fraction of rock collected several football fields apart from each other, for which we're trying to make predictions of all the rock properties in between. This technology has helped us move fast in Zambia, where I come from, to design and develop a mine based on our predictions, for which we've only sampled a tiny fraction of rock. Once again, there are many possibilities, all consistent with the data, some with a lot more metal, some with less, and the difference is a measure of uncertainties. This enables us to know where we should collect information next, where we should drill the next hole, and when we can stop drilling and actually start building a mine. To build the mine of the future, we continue to contend with this uncertainty. The industry designs an entire mine based on a single model. We're developing Cobo Mine, a mine design optimization tool that looks at the many possible mine designs against the many possible ore body geometries that we talked about earlier. This enables the best decisions about how much ore we're going to mine, how much waste we're going to produce, how much water we'll use, the cash flows and so on. This enables the best mine planning decisions about where to put permanent infrastructure like a shaft, where the traffic and the tunnels will be placed so we can make efficient decisions and also how we can maximize the ore and the metal we get and minimize the waste. This technology will move into mine operations to help guide day to day decisions for efficiencies. Better predictions don't just mean profitability, it means a safer mine knowing where the rocks are weaker. It means an environmentally sustainable mine so we can lessen our impact on the environment. And it also means a resilient mine with cash flows to support local communities and businesses through different commodity pricing cycles. Our Mingomba project in Zambia will be the mine of the future. It's being designed and developed by amazing talent from around the world, including Zambians and Africans like myself. We face the reality that our need for these materials will continue to grow because our lifestyles are going to advance and they're going to demand for it. So the mining industry must ensure they transform so we can become responsible miners and build better mines with better technology. Asante and thank you.