A collaboration between Rio Tinto, a global mining and metals company, and Amazon Web Services means a mine in Cochise County will soon be providing Amazon with copper for its U.S. data centers.
According to a news release from Rio Tinto, the company has entered into a two-year collaboration with Amazon.
Amazon will get to use the first Nuton-produced copper from Gunnison Copper's Johnson Camp copper mine in Cochise County. In turn, it will provide cloud-based data and analytics to help optimize Nuton's proprietary bioleaching system at the mine.
Copper is a critical material for data centers, the news release said. It is used in electrical cabling, transformers, circuit boards and cooling systems.
Nuton, according to the news release, uses naturally occurring microorganisms to extract copper from primary sulphide ores, producing 99.99% pure copper cathode at the mine site, the news release said.
