🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Horis is betting on a fast-growing corner of sorting equipment

• HORIS raised about US$28 million to build AI ore sorting machines. The market sits near US$850 million and could grow about 15.5% a year 1.
• AI ore sorting is expanding at more than twice the pace of the wider sensor-based sorting machine market. Sensor-based sorting uses cameras, lasers, or X-rays to separate materials, and it is forecast to grow 6.68% annually 2.
• Asia Pacific makes up over 35% of the global AI ore sorting market, which gives a strong base for a Chinese firm 1.
• Competition is tight. The AI ore sorting report names Tomra (a Norway-based industrial sorting equipment company) and Anhui Zhongke Optic-electronic Color Sorter Machinery (a Chinese maker of optical and color-sorting machines) as leading players, and it says they together hold over 40% of the global market 1.

AI sorters are changing how raw materials pencil out

• AI sorting can make lower-grade ores pay off, which matters as ore grades fall 3.
• These systems improve recovery and cut energy or water use downstream by rejecting waste earlier. That can support supply of energy transition metals such as copper and nickel 4.
• The same approach helps recycling by pulling higher-purity metals from complex waste streams, which supports circular-economy goals 2.
• Automation also eases labor shortages and wage pressure in manual sorting, which speeds a shift toward more resilient industrial supply chains 2.