KoBold Metals, a California-based metals exploration company backed by billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, said that it has discovered a vast copper deposit in Zambia.
A spokesperson for KoBold Metals told CNBC on Monday that the company believes its Mingomba copper project in Zambia "will be one of the world's biggest high-grade large copper mines."
"It is Kakula-scale in size and grade," KoBold Metals President Josh Goldman said in a statement shared on the firm's social media site X.
Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian mining company founded by billionaire magnate Robert Friedland, owns nearly 40% of the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine.
KoBold Metals says it uses artificial intelligence to create a "Google Maps" of the Earth's crust to help find new deposits of copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Persons:
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Josh Goldman, Robert Friedland, Andreessen Horowitz, Ray Dalio, Virgin Group's Richard Branson, Alibaba's Jack Ma
Organizations:
KoBold Metals, CNBC, Democratic, Ivanhoe Mines, KoBold, BHP, Breakthrough Energy, Bridgewater Associates
Locations:
Victoria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Livingstone, California, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Canadian, Norwegian