A 1.5-meter-long drill pipe is moving slowly toward the coal bed in a mine in north China's Shanxi Province, which is known for its coal resources. And in a control center 500 meters away, a screen displays pictures and data that the drill pipe has collected.

"Drilling is automatic with artificial intelligence (AI)," said Wen Haiming, chief engineer at the Shanxi Chengfeng Coal Industry Company.

Water exploration and drainage are necessary steps in maintaining the underground operational safety of coal mines, and aim to prevent water accidents. With the construction of intelligent mining facilities, AI has allowed for these steps to be completed via video monitoring and sensors.

AI improves the quality of drilling and construction, and firmly supports underground mining operations, said Wang Yu, deputy general manager of intelligent underground water exploration service provider Jingying Shuzhi Technology Co., Ltd.

Coal mining is considered a high-risk industry. In recent years, China has been strengthening the intelligent transformation of its coal mines and promoting the application of AI in underground mining.

As of January 2024, Shanxi Province has built 118 intelligent coal mines and 1,491 intelligent mining sites.

The Mataihao coal mine in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region installed an intelligent monitoring and management system in 2022. The system combines AI recognition and industrial operations technology to optimize the mine's transport capacity in real-time and realize intelligent speed control.

According to Nie Helei, a member of the mine's electromechanical transport team, the system has effectively reduced electricity and equipment loss, and realized balanced and flexible operations regardless of coal amounts.

"It is estimated that the system can reduce electricity consumption by 2 million kilowatt-hours each year and cut electricity bills by approximately 4 million yuan (about 553,000 U.S. dollars)," Nie said.

Complex underground mining conditions and the geological structures of different coal mines mean there are high requirements for AI.

A group of coal mining enterprises in Shanxi Province has established an integrated industrial internet platform with an AI large model at its core. The scale of operations at the platform's intelligent computing center is 64 petaflops in its first phase.

The intelligent platform stores the data of more than 400 coal mines, said Wang Hui, general manager of Shanxi Jinyun Interconnection Technology Co., Ltd.

"It can help lower the threshold of AI research and development, generate intelligent products quickly, and achieve iteration and product innovation by providing massive amounts of coal mine application scenario data and AI large model training services," Wang said.

With a designed maximum computing power of more than 200 petaflops, the center is expected to provide strong support for AI application in coal mining.