Mine development timelines clash with critical minerals security goals

North America’s efforts to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals are encountering a structural impediment that regulatory reform alone cannot resolve. The primary obstacle is the extensive duration required to determine whether mining projects are technically and economically viable. In the United States, the progression of a mineral deposit from initial discovery through development to commercial production frequently exceeds three decades. This period encompasses engineering, technical validation, financing and permitting. These long-term development cycles stand in stark contrast to national security and procurement objectives, which typically operate on timelines measured in years rather than decades.

The engineering and technical studies necessary to advance projects toward financing and construction represent a significant, yet often overlooked, bottleneck in the establishment of domestic critical minerals supply chains. Updated Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations requirements are scheduled to take effect in January 2027, mandating that materials used in certain defence applications originate from non-aligned countries. Additionally, effective from January 1, the Department of War will enforce a prohibition on Chinese-origin rare earth magnets and constituent materials in all covered defence systems. Dr. Ari Rostami, chief executive officer of mining technology company AiMinr, stated that this timeline is unrealistic given that current US critical minerals production falls short of the required levels. He noted that with the current infrastructure in place, US production is not aligned with the deadline.

Rostami described the issue as a fundamental mismatch between the timelines driving national security policy and those governing mine development. He characterised mine development as operating on a generational clock, which does not reconcile with the faster pace of security requirements. He observed that China has built a far more accelerated and centrally coordinated system, whereas Western mining projects continue to move through fragmented and largely sequential development processes. The risk extends beyond delayed project completion. Commodity markets and technology can evolve before a mine reaches production. Rostami cited cobalt as an example, noting that while expectations of growing demand from electric vehicles encouraged interest in new supply, battery manufacturers increasingly adopted alternatives, including cobalt-free lithium-iron-phosphate chemistries. He warned that by the time domestic mines come online, the technology they were intended to address may have already moved on, or the market may have been lost to competition.

Efforts in the US and Canada to accelerate mine development have focused heavily on permitting, but Rostami argued that regulatory approvals tell only part of the story. He estimates that roughly 30% to 40% of the development timeline can be consumed by project studies and technical validation. This process begins with preliminary economic assessments and scoping studies and advances through prefeasibility, feasibility and detailed engineering. He contended that blaming the entire delay on permitting and government is not the whole story. The company he co-founded identifies two structural problems with the conventional process. The first is its dependence on labor-intensive engineering, where teams spend months developing mine designs, schedules, processing flowsheets and cost estimates, even as the industry faces a shrinking pool of experienced technical workers. The second is that studies are typically completed through linear, siloed workflows. Information passes from geologists to mine planners, then to processing engineers and finally to financial teams. If an important assumption changes, the consequences can ripple through the entire study, forcing teams to redo substantial amounts of work.

AiMinr is attempting to address these issues with a software platform designed specifically for mining capital projects. The company began developing the system in late 2021 with the goal of accelerating studies including preliminary economic assessments, prefeasibility and feasibility work. It now offers the platform as cloud-based software to mining companies, consultancies and investors. At its core is an orchestrated engine, described by Rostami as a digital general contractor for major mining projects. Rather than treating geology, geotechnical engineering, hydrology, ventilation, metallurgy and financial modelling as isolated disciplines, the platform connects them through more than 50 specialized AI agents managed by a central orchestrator. This allows changes to project assumptions to propagate through multiple disciplines simultaneously. For example, a change in commodity prices or mine design can trigger corresponding updates to mine plans, processing assumptions and financial models, rather than requiring teams to manually rebuild each component.

AiMinr also uses agents to automate elements of planning, scheduling, cost estimation and process-flow design. Rostami said the approach has the potential to compress engineering work that can currently stretch over a decade into a matter of years, and potentially months for some parts of the process. Convincing mining companies to trust artificial intelligence with engineering decisions remains a hurdle. The company addresses this by separating its AI orchestration layer from the underlying calculation engine. The agents manage deterministic algorithms used for processes such as mass balances and mine planning, rather than relying on generative AI to guess or generate numbers. This architecture is intended to make results traceable and allow them to be cross-validated against project inputs and operating data. Rostami noted that attitudes toward AI are changing among executives and major producers, although companies often know they want to deploy AI without necessarily understanding where or how it should be applied. AiMinr is already working with major mining companies, including a client at a brownfield operation in Alaska using its technology to overhaul short- and long-term planning, resource and reserve estimation and mine planning. For Western governments trying to build critical mineral supply chains on national-security timelines, the distinction between consumer-facing generative AI tools and this specific engineering architecture could become increasingly important. Permitting reform may remove one obstacle to getting mines built faster, but speeding up the engineering work needed to determine which projects should be built in the first place could be just as critical.