The battle for mineral knowledge in DRC: Belgian museum, US mining agency at odds over archive maps

Just some kilometers from Brussels, the cellars of the Royal Museum for Central Africa maintain one of many world’s most respected mining archives. Colonial-era maps and surveys had beforehand detailed minerals like cobalt, lithium, coltan, and tungsten, important for the digital and vitality transition. Now, a battle over digitization is unfolding, with these paperwork actually price their weight in gold. KoBold Metals, backed by Invoice Gates and Jeff Bezos, is trying to AI with a purpose to find new deposits sooner.