Chilean copper mining major Codelco has signed an agreement with Microsoft that it says will promote better conditions for the accelerated adoption of technologies, a priority for the company, which includes, among other innovations, a Digital Academy to optimise the digital skills necessary for the future. Codelco says the objective of this agreement is to deliver more value to its mining business processes as it plans for the next 50 years of copper mining. It forms part of Microsoft Chile’s Transforma Chile #ReactivaciónDigital plan that was announced in December 2020 and which seeks to contribute to the digital transformation and economic recovery of the country.
The Transforma Chile #ReactivaciónDigital plan is Microsoft’s most significant investment in its 28-year history in the country. Delivered from data centres in Chile, the Microsoft cloud will increase work communications and remote learning through services such as Microsoft Teams, improve the reliability and scalability of services for Chilean companies, and empower individuals and the public and private sectors to innovate with the latest developer tools.
“We are strengthening the quality and efficiency of our processes. We are promoting profound changes so that different business areas can operate in a completely remote and automated way, reducing risk, and improving the productivity, safety and reliability of our operations. In this sense, collaboration with a company with Microsoft’s experience opens up promising development possibilities,” says Álvaro García, Vice President of Technology and Automation in Business processes at Codelco.
The agreement includes various initiatives, including the application of advanced analytics tools that will allow streamlining and acceleration of Codelco’s existing strategy. The joint work that both companies plan to carry out for the future is framed in three main pillars: Advanced Analytics, Migration Infrastructure and Digital Academy. The latter is a learning instance for Codelco workers, which seeks to strengthen a digital culture within the copper company. Microsoft will contribute to this initiative by providing key technological knowledge so that they can face the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“This agreement is part of our commitment to support the economic reactivation of the country with our Transforma Chile plan. The cloud and Artificial Intelligence have the potential to promote development and economic recovery in our country and make innovative technologies, such as cloud computing and AI, available to all sectors, thus contributing to the development of Chile. Along with technology, it is key to train employees for their own development and growth within the framework of this transformation. I am proud to be able to work with Codelco to transform the sector by also training its people in new skills, “said Sergio Rademacher, General Manager of Microsoft Chile.
Finally, this joint action will also address sustainability and how to optimise the processes of the state company, using technology and digitisation, bearing in mind technical, social, economic and environmental considerations. This collaborative initiative does not constitute an investment commitment and can be terminated by the sole agreement and / or will of one of the parties.
