Reports: Rio Tinto Group partners with Amazon Web Services.

According to reports, Amazon has set its sights on a copper mine in Arizona, USA which started production last year and became the first new source of copper in over a decade in the United States, in order to meet the strong demand for this industrial metal from its data centers. The reopening of this copper mine is a key support for the Rio Tinto Group, with its main purpose being to validate Rio Tinto's new mining technology for low-grade copper ore. Rio Tinto has signed a two-year copper supply agreement with Amazon Web Services, which is an endorsement of its Newton project. This project uses the synergistic action of microorganisms and acid to extract copper metal from ore that was previously considered economically unviable due to high extraction costs. Amazon's move is the latest evidence of technology companies competing to secure the necessary electricity and key raw material supply for the construction and operation of artificial intelligence data centers. Rio Tinto expects the cathode copper production at its Newton project in Arizona to be 14,000 tons in the next four years, a scale that may not be enough to support the construction needs of a large data center.