geoscience
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Viridien Built a Supercomputer Business by Learning to See Through Rock
The company once known mainly for seismic surveys has become an asset-light seller of Earth data, algorithms, sensors and computing power. Its wager is simple: the machinery built to understand reservoirs can also help industry understand almost anything difficult, hidden or computationally expensive.
Zanskar
Zanskar is a Salt Lake City geothermal company that uses artificial intelligence and computational geoscience to find, de-risk, and develop naturally occurring geothermal energy. By applying machine learning to vast troves of geological data, Zanskar pinpoints 'blind' hydrothermal reservoirs that leave no clue at the surface, cutting the exploration risk that has long kept geothermal expensive. The company is now moving from discovery to building its own power plants, with a multi-gigawatt pipeline aimed at making 24/7 carbon-free power cost-competitive.
Terra AI
Terra AI is a Palo Alto geoscience company building generative AI that turns the messy, expensive guesswork of subsurface exploration into fast, probabilistic 3D models of what lies underground. By fusing geophysics, geochemistry, and drilling data, its platform generates millions of geological scenarios in minutes, helping mining and energy teams decide where to drill, how many wells they need, and whether a project is worth the capital - shrinking exploration timelines and pointing capital at the critical minerals the clean-energy transition depends on.
KoBold Metals
KoBold Metals is a Berkeley-based mineral exploration company that uses artificial intelligence, data science, and geophysics to find the copper, lithium, cobalt, and nickel deposits the energy transition will require. Founded in 2018, it has raised roughly $1 billion from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, T. Rowe Price, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, and is developing the Mingomba copper project in Zambia, called the country's largest copper discovery in a century.