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The Market Online
2 days ago
- Business
- The Market Online
AI Strikes Gold: How Technology Is Reshaping the Future of Mineral Exploration
Coreena Robertson, Expert Exchange Web Summit Vancouver 2025 It wasn't just software and startups making waves at Web Summit Vancouver. For the first time, The New Energy Track at the summit hosted its own stage in one of the world's most influential tech gatherings—with AI emerging as a powerful force reshaping how we discover the critical minerals that power the modern world. In Vancouver for the first time, the conference hosted over 15,000 people from 117 counties. Among the speakers leading this charge was Steve de Jong, CEO of VRIFY an AI-assisted mineral discovery platform. During his session titled 'Striking Gold in the Global Minerals Race' , de Jong emphasized that AI isn't just a buzzword—it's a game-changing tool in the race to secure the world's critical mineral supply. 'There's so much data that sits out there today,' de Jong said. 'There's a whole bunch of discoveries waiting to be made just sitting within that data… I think you're going to see an entire wave of AI discoveries in the very near future.' Steve de Jong, CEO VRIFY Mining Meets the Modern Age VRIFY is tackling a central challenge in the mining industry: mineral discovery is time-consuming, expensive, and often inefficient. Traditional exploration methods can take over a decade to result in a working mine. But AI is drastically accelerating that process. 'From discovery to building a mine, you'll often hear 15 years. We focus on making the discovery part as efficient as possible,' said de Jong. 'We want to get to a decision point quickly—either this isn't big enough or yes, it is.' Steve de Jong, CEO VRIFY By layering massive, complex datasets—from geochemistry to satellite imagery to historic drill records—AI can detect hidden correlations that the human brain simply can't compute. 'The human brain can process maybe four or five layers of data. AI can look at 52 layers—and millions of data points—and find the patterns that correlate with something like copper or gold,' he explained. The Myth of 'All the Easy Stuff Is Found' One of the most disruptive ideas de Jong presented was that many high-value mineral deposits may already be discovered—but hidden in plain sight. 'You often hear, 'All the easy stuff has been found.' We just fundamentally disagree,' said de Jong. 'Until very recently, we've never had the tools to squeeze every little bit of insight out of all the data that's been collected. That's changed now with AI.' He cited a powerful example from his time leading Integra Gold, where a massive gold deposit was found just two kilometers from two historic mines—missed for decades because it was hidden under a swamp. 'It turned out to be bigger than either of the two mines next to it. But because all the infrastructure was already there, the environmental impact and development timeline was minimal,' said de Jong. A Critical Tool in the Critical Minerals Race As countries scramble to secure domestic sources of lithium, copper, antimony, and other essential materials, AI-driven exploration is becoming not just a competitive advantage, but a geopolitical necessity. 'Every country in the world is waking up to the fact that they need to supply their own long-term critical mineral supply,' de Jong explained. 'Some of these elements—like antimony—were previously overlooked, but they're essential for things like batteries and defense.' He shared that VRIFY recently worked on a European project where re-analyzing existing data for antimony—a critical mineral often sourced from China—revealed a previously untapped opportunity. 'By literally changing one input in the AI model, we went from looking at gold to uncovering a whole new antimony potential. It's that simple—and that powerful.' A Tool for Investors, Not Just Geologists Beyond mining companies, investors are beginning to embrace AI as a due diligence tool. 'I'm not a geologist. And for a lot of investors, it's hard to keep up with the technical language,' de Jong admitted. 'But AI helps level the playing field. Think of it like an audit of a project's mineral potential.' He revealed that a mining investment fund recently enlisted Verrifi to analyze a prospective project before committing capital—an example of how AI is informing not only discovery but also decision-making. 'It's not about replacing the geology team,' de Jong clarified. 'It's about giving them more insight—and giving investors the confidence that every data point has been considered.' A New Era for Exploration With AI rapidly maturing and tools like Verrifi showing real-world impact, de Jong is optimistic that the mineral exploration sector is entering a transformative new phase. 'You can't look at today's AI with yesterday's eyes. This isn't the same tech from three years ago,' he said. 'I think we're in a new era of exploration—one that's more efficient, more sustainable, and more accessible.' Steve de Jong, VRIFY Everything we touch, everything we use—it all comes from the ground. And now, we finally have the tools to understand that better.' About the Author: This article was produced for the Expert Exchange following Web Summit Vancouver 2025. Coreena Robertson conducted the in-studio interview with Steve de Jong. Join the discussion: Check out the rest of Stockhouse's stock forums and message boards. The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. For full disclaimer information, please click here.
Axios
06-06-2025
- Business
- Axios
Blink and your AI security playbook is out of date
Generative AI is evolving so fast that security leaders are tossing out the playbooks they wrote just a year or two ago. Why it matters: Defending against AI-driven threats, including autonomous attacks, will require companies to make faster, riskier security bets than they've ever had to before. The big picture: Boards today are commonly demanding CEOs have plans to implement AI across their enterprises, even if legal and compliance teams are hesitant about security and IP risks. Agentic AI promises to bring even more nuanced — and potentially frightening — security threats. Autonomous cyberattacks, "vibe hacking" and data theft are all on the table. Driving the news: Major AI model makers have unveiled several new findings and security frameworks that underscore just how quickly the state of the AI art is advancing. Researchers recently found that one of Anthropic's new models, Claude 4 Opus, has the ability to scheme, deceive and potentially blackmail humans when faced with a shutdown. Google DeepMind unveiled a new security framework for protecting models against indirect prompt injection — a threat in which a bad actor manipulates the instructions given to an LLM. That takes on new consequences in an agentic world. Case in point: A bad actor could trick an AI agent into exfiltrating internal documents simply by embedding a hidden instruction in what looks like a normal email or calendar invite. What they're saying:"Nobody thought the concept of agents and the usage of AI would get rolled out so quickly," Morgan Kyauk, managing director at late-stage venture firm NightDragon, told Axios. Even NightDragon's own framework, rolled out in mid-2023, likely needs to be revised, Kyauk added. "Things have changed around AI so quickly — that's been the surprising part about being an investor in this category," he said. Zoom in: Kyle Hanslovan, CEO and co-founder of Huntress, told Axios that his company is only making decisions about AI — including how to implement it and how to secure against it — on a six-week basis. "I think that is probably too long," Hanslovan said in an interview on the sidelines of Web Summit Vancouver. "But if you do more than that, then what happens is whiplash." By the numbers: Companies now have an average of 66 generative AI tools running in their environments, according to new research from Palo Alto Networks on Thursday. But the security stakes keep growing: About 14% of data loss incidents so far in 2025 involved employees accidentally sharing sensitive corporate information with a third-party generative AI tool, according to the report. Reality check: One hallmark of generative AI is the ability to rapidly advance its reasoning capabilities by turning it back upon itself. In hindsight, experts say, the need for security to be just as adaptive should have been obvious. "Why did we think, with something that's adapting as quickly as AI, it was even OK to have more than a six-month model?" Hanslovan said. Yes, but: John "Four" Flynn, vice president of security at Google DeepMind, told Axios that while some parts of AI security are new, like prompt injection or agent permissioning, many other aspects just extend known practices. If an agent is running, security teams would still need to examine what data sources that agent should have permission to access or how secure the login protocols are for that agent. "All is not lost, we don't have to reinvent every single wheel," Flynn said. "There are some new things, but there's a lot of things that we can lean on that we've become quite good at over the years." The intrigue: CISOs and their teams are more comfortable with generative AI than they have been with other big technological shifts — and that could give defenders an edge in developing new tools to fend off incoming attacks, Kyauk said.
Business Insider
04-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Bluesky started out at Twitter. Now it's a Twitter rival. CEO Jay Graber explains what happened.
I admit it: I most definitely rolled my eyes in 2019, when Twitter announced vague plans to build a " open and decentralized standard for social media." At the time I didn't really understand what then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was trying to do — or why the head of a social media company with plenty of problems was messing around with plans to create more social media companies. I get it now: Bluesky was a science project that aimed to let people build their own social networks. And that's still what it is at its core, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. But in the meantime, Bluesky has also become an accidental Twitter rival, with some 36 million users. And most of them likely don't care about Bluesky's origins, or the fact that it's really supposed to be a technical framework for decentralized social media. Or what decentralized social media means, for that matter. All of which means that talking to Graber about Bluesky means you're doing two things at once: asking about how Bluesky, the app, works — and what Bluesky, the idea, is. I tried to do that in a conversation with her at Web Summit Vancouver in May, and you can hear the entire conversation on my Channels podcast. In the edited excerpt below, Graber discusses the recent influx of Bluesky users, the premise behind the company and its ambitions — and her T-shirt that trolled Mark Zuckerberg. Peter Kafka: You've been growing really fast. I assume a lot of that is people who came over after Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, and then another wave of people who came over when Mark Zuckerberg pivoted toward Donald Trump. Jay Graber: I think it happens for various reasons in different places. But in general, people want to branch out, try new things. And in the US recently we've seen a lot of uptake since November. Are people coming because they want a service that gives them something they don't have somewhere else? Or is it because they don't like the service they're using — either because of the people that are on there or the people who are running it? It's all sorts of reasons. It's moderation policies. It's a sense of toxicity and fatigue. It's people wanting to just try something new. It's people finding their community here. I think in general it's both people looking for something and people looking to get away from something. I think most people are still confused about what Bluesky actually is, because it's not a simple answer. Want to try explaining? Bluesky started as a protocol that Twitter would run on, and so it was an alternative foundation for Twitter. It has turned into an alternative app that people treat as a microblogging alternative. We built an app that is very familiar, and that's both good and bad. It's good because it's familiar, so people don't have to feel like it's this big learning curve to use it. It's also bad, because people think that's all it is. And what it actually is, is a lobby to the open social web, which is what we set out to build — this open protocol ecosystem that you could build apps like Twitter on. In Twitter's earliest days, there were debates about whether it should be a protocol instead of a company or a service. What does protocol mean? The protocol is like a toolbox for building social apps. The way to think about it is it's a bit like email. Email services [can] talk to each other [because there's a protocol]. And so the protocol is a way to build a microblogging service that talks to other services. It's a language that computers talk in order to transfer data and information. And companies can build on the protocol. A big idea behind Bluesky is that it's decentralized. That appealed to Jack Dorsey, who started Bluesky when he was still running Twitter, and it appeals to you. What is it about decentralization that excites you? Is it inherently a good thing? There's benefits to both centralization and decentralization. There are ways to build things. There are system properties. You see it across the organic world, and you see it in organizations and you see it pretty much everywhere once you start looking for it. And what decentralization is good for is parallel experimentation and resilience: You can do a lot of things at one time, like all the arms of an octopus. When you're centralized, you can concentrate resources, and move one direction very fast. But if you get that wrong, then you have no fallbacks. With decentralization, you can try all these things and then you pick the experiments that win. It lets you evolve in a more open manner. And I think that produces better outcomes in a time when you have a lot of rapid change. Because if you bet on a centralized direction, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. I get why that appeals to a developer, someone who wants to try building their own thing. Why is that good for a normal person, who probably doesn't know that this thing is decentralized, and probably has not heard the word protocol? Why would they care about whether something is centralized or not? It really takes developers to show you what you can build. But we've tried really hard to make it possible for people who don't know how to code to be able to experience some of the benefits of decentralization. That means having control over your timeline and the way that you moderate the app. You can build your own moderation service and you don't even have to know how to code: You can use one of the open source tools we've put out there and you just go in there and run your own little moderation service for you and your friends. You can do the same for your own feed. Sometimes we say it's a choose-your-own-adventure app. Because you can come into the default experience and the main storyline is familiar. But then if you go deeper under the hood, you can find all these different little universes. Of those 36 million people who are using Bluesky today, how many are using the straight out of the box, Twitter replacement version? And how many are modifying the experience or building on top of that? A good number of them play around with it. It's something that is getting increasingly integrated into people's everyday experience through various feeds. There's about 50,000 feeds. A few thousand are relatively popular, and a few dozen or a few hundred are quite popular. There's the science feed or, Blacksky. There's one called the 'gram, which is just pictures. There's one called Quiet Posters, which is just your friends who don't post that often. Those are essentially different algorithms that give you a different experience of the network. There are no ads on Blue Sky right now. A lot of people say "ads are the reason the internet sucks." You haven't ruled out ads though, right? I think ads work their way into every attention economy. But we are very wary of going down the ad-driven path, because we know that's the history of Twitter and a lot of other sites — particularly when you lock users in around your timeline, you do a lot of things to start actually making the timeline more engaging, but in some ways worse in order to keep users on there. I think there's probably a new relationship that needs to be found with advertising. You wore a T-shirt with Latin on it at an event a couple months ago. What did that say and why did you wear it? It said " a world without Caesars" and I wore it because I saw this article where Mark Zuckerberg had worn this shirt that said "All Zuck or Nothing", which is a "Caesar or nothing" reference. Is there a Bluesky store where I can buy that shirt?
Qatar Tribune
02-06-2025
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
Invest Qatar showcases startup ecosystem at Web Summit Vancouver
Tribune News Network Doha Invest Qatar, the Investment Promotion Agency of Qatar,marked its successful participation in the inaugural Web Summit Vancouver, held from 27 to 30 May. The event showcased Qatar's welcoming and dynamic startup ecosystem through the 'Startup Qatar' pavilion, which attracted significant attention from attendees and industry leaders. The 'Startup Qatar' pavilion, a collaborative effort between Invest Qatar and key ecosystem partners including Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Qatar Development Bank (QDB), Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council (QRDI) highlighted the exclusive advantages and extensive opportunities available to startups and entrepreneurs looking to establish and expand their ventures in Qatar. Throughout the four-day summit, the pavilion facilitated connections between attendees and key stakeholders in Qatar's startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem. It emphasised the country's thriving business environment, multi-sectoral opportunities, and tailored benefits designed to empower ambitious startups and support their long-term growth. Senior representatives from the Qatar delegation actively engaged in panel discussions and networking sessions, highlighting the country's progress in driving innovation and technological advancement. Hamad Al-Naimi, Strategy Manager at Invest Qatar, participated in a panel discussiontitled 'From Seed to Scale: Catalysing Startup Growth in Emerging Tech Hubs' alongside António Dias Martins, CEO of Startup Portugal. During the discussion, Al-Naimi shared valuable insights into the policies and initiatives Qatar is pursuing to strengthen its position as a dynamic hub for innovation and startups. He also highlighted Qatar's recently launched $1 billion incentives programme, aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability and global competitiveness of startups and fintech companies. The programme focuses on key sectors, including technology, with targeted support for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity and data-driven innovation, to foster a robust digital economy and attract high-impact investments. The participation at Web Summit Vancouver builds on the significant interest and record success of the 'Startup Qatar' initiative during previous international tech events. The initiative, launched ahead of the inaugural Web Summit Qatar, has recorded over 450 business registrations facilitated by QFC and received more than 4,000 applications for the 'Startup Qatar Investment Programme' by QDB. This programme offers funding of up to $500,000 for seed-stage and up to $5 million for growth-stage companies. To date, the programme has awarded $23.5M in funding to 19 startups from across the world, including Italy, Oman, Singapore, the U.K., the U.S. and Turkey. These startups benefit from funding, mentorship and other support services in Qatar's innovation-driven 'Startup Qatar' initiative is designed to support startups at every stage of their journey. It provides an innovative one-stop online platform ( catering to all business requirements and enabling them to access Qatar's extensive network of support services, opportunities, funding, incubation programmes, government grants, networking events and various other resources.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
U.S. lawyer targeted by Trump cautions Canada on AI and attacks on dissent
VANCOUVER — An American lawyer stripped of his security clearance by U.S. President Donald Trump says Canadians need to be vigilant about attacks on political freedom south of the border. Mark Zaid, a speaker at the Web Summit Vancouver tech conference, said he never expected to get "attacked" by a sitting president over the work he's done in his three decades practising law, representing clients from the worlds of intelligence and national security. He said Canadians need to be wary of the rise of artificial intelligence that could be used to either target political dissent or shield it, warning that it's hard to prevent attacks on democratic norms, rather than react to them. Zaid said that there were rumours in Washington about how AI was potentially used to sniff out anti-Trump dissent. "This is more about whether or not political dissent is going to be tolerated, and so I think AI and the tech community is the next sort of shield," he said Thursday. Zaid is co-founder of the non-profit Whistleblower Aid and he said Canada is not immune to the forces that have shaped American political culture under Trump. "We share so much with our television, the news broadcasts, everything. We're watching each other all the time and so I think what's going on in the United States could easily happen in Canada, which I hope never will," he said. "But that's why you watch what's going on elsewhere to make sure it doesn't happen here." Zaid is suing Trump and others after the president stripped him of his security clearance at the same time as former president Joe Biden and other political figures. The lawyer had represented a whistleblower during the first Trump administration, and has practised law in the national security space since former president Bill Clinton was in power. He touts himself as non-partisan, and says he is registered as an independent. Zaid -- who said he didn't bring his cellphone across the border in case it got confiscated on his return -- said artificial intelligence may be in its "infancy" but it is at the "forefront of everything that's going on." He said technology's impacts on politics knows no borders, with social media bot accounts from outside the country demonstrating how "you don't any longer have to be local to be able to have an effect. In fact, you can be across the world." "Before Twitter became X, much of the disinformation that was being targeted at the United States during the elections in 2016 in particular was coming from overseas," he said. Zaid said the work Whistleblower Aid does in the U.S. "is needed in every country around the world," to protect people who take great professional risks to reveal institutional wrongdoing and face potential political retribution. He said he'd recently began watching the television show "The Handmaid's Tale," based on Canadian author Margaret Atwood's book, which is "not a very positive thing to watch." "Canada is the home for U.S. asylum seekers in 'Handmaid's Tale.' So for those of you who are Canadian, do not become our 51st state. Stay free, please," he said. "In both countries, the power is with the people to hold the government accountable, not the other way around." This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2025. The Canadian Press
