Shandong Energy Group, Huawei, and Yunding Technology jointly launched the Pangu Mine Model, a commercial large AI model, designed to enhance the application of AI in the mining industry. It aims to transform workshop-scale AI model development to factory-scale development.
“We aim to improve the intelligence level of the mining industry by expanding the depth and breadth of AI application in different scenarios. We also hope to deliver more automation, achieve greater efficiency, reduce labor intensity, and improve safety in the mining industry,” said Li Wei, chairman, Shandong Energy.
Rolling out first batch of AI applications
Shandong Energy, Yunding Technology, and Huawei have started deploying the first set of AI applications for mining, which were developed based on the pilot of large AI models in industrial production.
To date, there are altogether 21 application scenarios related to nine operating activities, namely: coal mining, tunneling, primary transportation, auxiliary transportation, lifting, safety monitoring, rock burst prevention, coal preparation, and coking.
Rock bursts are a particularly challenging issue in mining. The primary means of preventing rock bursts is drilling destress holes, whose quality matters.
Shandong Energy has managed to address this challenge in its Lilou and Xinjulong coal mines by deploying the large AI model. With its visual recognition capabilities, the model can intelligently analyse the quality of stress relief drilling, and assist rock burst prevention personnel in quality verification, reducing their review workload by 82%.
It used to take three days to complete such checks; now the time has been shortened to 10 minutes, with a 100% acceptance rate.
"AI will continue to power the upgrading of the mining industry, and play an important role in making coal production safer, greener, and semi- or fully-automate,” said Zou Zhilei, chairman of Huawei Mine BU.
Joint innovation centre
Shandong Energy, Yunding Technology, and Huawei established a joint innovation centre at the beginning of 2022.
To make mines smarter, the three companies introduced the Pangu Model, which features decoupled operation management and intelligent production, in-campus data processing, large-scale replicability, and learning and analysis from small samples.
The joint innovation center's AI operation system makes use of central training, edge inference, cloud-edge coordination, learning by using, and non-stop optimisation.
The centre’s AI management system consists of group management and coal mine execution. The management of coal production was transformed from being reactive and manual-intensive to being proactive and intelligent.
“Huawei will continue to dive deep into industry transformation and make the powerful capabilities of the Pangu Model available to a wider range of industries. We will enable partners and work with them to solve industry problems in specific scenarios, creating greater value. The launch of the first commercial Pangu Mine Model has injected new impetus into the high-quality development of the mining industry and the energy sector at large,” said Zhou.
