US Departments of Energy and Labor have signed a five-year MoU to accelerate deployment of AI, automation and advanced sensors across US mining, linking DOE’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office and Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation with DOL’s Mine Safety and Health Administration. The partnership will run joint research, testing and demonstration projects with the National Energy Technology Laboratory Coal Center of Excellence, focusing on next‑generation mining systems and hazard detection. Workstreams include digitising legacy mining data, improving public mineral resource datasets on federally managed lands, and expanding technology-focused training for miners.

CAPS Australia is promoting mine-spec compressed air and power generation systems at QME 2026, drawing on more than 45 years’ experience and a national network of 10 branches to support remote and harsh mining environments. The company engineers customised compressor and generator packages in-house, with mine-duty features such as heavy filtration, high-dust cooling systems and robust enclosures tailored to Australian pit and plant conditions. For site engineers, the pitch centres on reliability, reduced unplanned downtime and locally supported maintenance regimes for critical air and power infrastructure.

Electronics recycler ERI and rare earths specialist Cyclic Materials are partnering to build “one of the largest rare earth recovery ecosystems in the US”, combining ERI’s eight US recycling centres and more than one million pounds per day of e‑waste throughput with Cyclic’s magnet-focused recovery and refining technologies. Feedstock will be routed mainly to Cyclic’s Arizona facility, which can process up to 25,000 tonnes of end‑of‑life components annually, and to a new McBee, South Carolina campus designed for 2,000 tonnes of magnet material per year, expandable to 6,000 tonnes. The collaboration targets domestic recovery of rare earths plus copper and aluminium, and includes joint bids on commercial and government RFPs for circular critical‑materials supply chains.