Pronto, the Silicon Valley-based autonomy pioneer with a new Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) approach for mining, has announced a partnership with RAICO SA, a leading mining and forestry equipment sales and rental services provider in Chile, to scale mining and forestry autonomy in the country.
Under the agreement, RAICO will exclusively provide sales, distribution, installation, and aftermarket support services for Pronto AHS and Pollen Mobile private LTE/5G network technologies in Chile. The partnership will initially be focused on deploying Pronto’s OEM-agnostic AHS on Bell articulated dump trucks, but will then expand to supporting other OEMs and applications.
“It’s not a coincidence that our first international partnership is in Chile, a critical supplier of minerals such as lithium, which like autonomous technology will be essential to the world’s transition to a carbon-neutral economy,” says Anthony Levandowski, CEO of Pronto. “The greenest mining is autonomous mining. We’re looking forward to bringing the environmental, cost, productivity, and safety benefits of our Autonomous Haulage System to mining, quarrying, and forestry operations of all sizes in Chile.”
Pronto’s AI-powered, software-centric solution is engineered to be deployed in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of competitive technologies, bringing autonomy within reach for operations and equipment of all sizes. The company’s AHS operates fully autonomously (Level 4), enabling customers to overcome labour shortages, maximise equipment utilisation, optimise efficiency, and minimise environmental impacts, while improving safety.
Christian Kurasek, CFO of Pronto told IM: “Chile is the world’s leading supplier of copper, and second-largest producer of lithium, and their mining industry is an essential source of the transition minerals needed for the global economy to meet its net zero carbon goals over the coming decades. As the mining industry races to meet the exponentially growing demand for transition minerals in a capital and labour-constrained environment, autonomy is going to be a pivotal enabler for operators who must do more with less. We’re looking forward to working with an industry leader like RAICO to bring our autonomous technologies to such a critical market. At this time, we cannot share any additional information about the projects that we have in-flight with RAICO but will have more to report in the coming months.”
“Autonomy is going to be necessary to support the world’s growing demand for critical resources such as lithium and cellulose, and it is the future for most operations in Chile. It is safe, reliable, environmentally friendly, and will help advance the productivity and technical capabilities of critical Chilean industries,” says Cristóbal Alexandroff, Commercial Manager of RAICO. “We’re excited to be helping usher in the future of sustainable energy, forestry, and mining with a global technology leader like Pronto.”
