The Conversation (0)
Barton Gold Holdings Limited (ASX: BGD) (Barton or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has signed binding terms with SensOre Ltd (ASX:S3N) (SensOre) for an exclusive R&D investment partnership across the central Gawler Craton in South Australia (R&D Partnership).
HIGHLIGHTS
- Exclusive R&D partnership developing and trialling Discriminant Predictive Targeting (DPT) for gold and copper mineralisation over 60,000km2 of the central Gawler Craton
- Phase 1 analysis identified multiple new gold and copper targets on Barton’s tenements1
- Execution of Binding Agreement kicks off Phase 2 development of the DPT module over the central Gawler Craton, and target generation for in-field drill testing and DPT validation
Barton and SensOre are collaborating to adapt its Western Australian artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) DPT targeting engine to South Australia. With the execution of binding terms the team is now commencing Phase 2 development and validation of a South Australian DPT targeting model, focused on gold and copper mineralisation within a ~60,000km2 area surrounding Barton’s tenements.
A map of the R&D Partnership area, and further details of its terms, are detailed on the following page.
Commenting on the new Partnership, Barton Gold MD Alex Scanlon said:
“We are excited to be taking the next step toward the development and trial application of these technologies in the central Gawler Craton. This is a very richly mineralised domain with relatively low historical exploration.
“SensOre is on the cutting edge of new mineral exploration technologies and is an ideal partner for Barton. Successful development of this technology is expected to accelerate Barton’s regional exploration successes, and further strengthen Barton’s regional strategic development advantage in the central Gawler Craton.”
Commenting on the new Partnership, SensOre CEO Richard Taylor said:
”With Phase 1 analyses indicating a large number of potential gold and copper targets across Barton’s tenements and the surrounding central Gawler Craton, we are excited to move to the next stage of this partnership.
“SensOre is an active mining technology group partnering on ground which it has evaluated using its proprietary data and technologies. We are very happy to be working with a development team of Barton’s calibre to leverage their significant existing development platform of 1.1Moz Au in a richly mineralised, but underexplored, domain.
“We anticipate that the combination of Barton’s existing mineralisation, its ownership of the region’s only gold mill, and the upside potential of our machine learning applications will present exciting future opportunities.”
Figure 1 – Barton Tenements with Phase I (Yellow) & Phase II (White) Areas of Exclusivity
Under the R&D Partnership, Barton has already contributed $45,000 to the development of Phase 1 regional prospectivity mapping, which has identified multiple prospective new gold and copper targets on Barton’s tenements, and across the surrounding 60,000km2 central Gawler Craton.2
With the commencement of Phase 2 works, Barton will contribute up to a further $350,000 to development of DPT in the central Gawler Craton. Barton will also provide its extensive private data sets for integration into a South Australian ‘data cube’ to refine, and then drill validate, the DPT targeting model.
Further to the terms of agreement:
- Barton will be entitled to 10 years’ exclusive use of the South Australian DPT module for gold and copper within an initial ~60,000km2 area indicated by the white polygon in Figure 1, during which time SensOre will also not compete with Barton to acquire gold or copper targets therein; and
- Subject to the successful production of gold and/or copper mineralisation at new targets predicted by the South Australian DPT module, SensOre will become entitled to additional benefits in the form of royalties linked to the quantum of gold and copper produced.
Barton will provide further updates as Phase 2 development and trialling progresses.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from SensOre Limited, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
S3N:AU
Tech 5: AI Takes Center Stage at CES, NVIDIA Unveils Cosmos Platform
1. AI takes center stage at CES
Unsurprisingly, CES underscored the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) across the tech landscape, with AI chips for PCs, new electric vehicles and the influence of robotics on the workforce taking center stage.
AI was prominent, featured in everything from appliances to pets. Following substantial investment, companies are under pressure to demonstrate the value and justify the cost of AI integration in their products.
As mentioned, tech stocks rose on Monday as the event began, with chipmakers like NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (NASDAQ:AMD) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE:TSM) leading the surge.
NVIDIA, whose CEO Jensen Huang gave the keynote address at CES, was a key focus.
Following the company's weaker-than-expected revenue outlook in November, investment interest in AI has been dispersing to include companies such as Broadcom and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL), whose share prices increased in the fourth quarter of 2024 while NVIDIA's remained relatively flat.
Broadcom, NVIDIA and Marvell Technology performance, Q4 2024.
Chart via Google Finance.
After a product reveal, NVIDIA saw its share price fall 8.5 percent to US$140.01 on Tuesday (January 7), its largest intraday drop since October 15. Chief among the AI bellwether’s long list of new products are the GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs, built on the Blackwell architecture. The flagship RTX 5090 for demanding workloads will be available this month for US$1,999, while the RTX 5070, a more budget-friendly version, will arrive in February for US$549.
NVIDIA also unveiled Project Digits, a desktop PC designed to empower AI researchers, data scientists and students; it has the ability to run very large AI models on laptops. Developed in collaboration with Taiwan's MediaTek (TPE:2454), the model is equipped with a Grace Blackwell Superchip and runs a version of the Linux operating system. Project Digits essentially puts an AI-powered personal supercomputer within reach for US$3,000 starting in May.
NVIDIA performance, January 6 to 10, 2025.
Chart via Google Finance.
NVIDIA's move highlights a broader trend at CES this year: the rise of AI PCs. AMD, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) all introduced chips designed to bring AI to everyday computing. AMD's high-powered Ryzen CPUs, which will power Dell’s (NYSE:DELL) corporate PCs, reportedly outperform Macs and offer a longer battery life.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm is broadening its business beyond mobile phone chips with the Snapdragon X Platform, an affordable chip for laptops and PCs that will run Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Copilot+ software. The company will also soon release a small desktop computer built with the chip. PC makers including Dell — which announced a rebranding of its PC line — will reportedly offer laptops based on the new product in early 2025.
AMD, Qualcomm and Dell saw share price increases of between 2 and 3.5 percent between Monday and Tuesday. However, Intel’s new processors featuring built-in AI acceleration and a dedicated neural-processing unit in select models weren’t enough to impress investors, and its share price was little changed over the same period.
2. Autonomous vehicles have their moment
While AI PCs generated excitement at CES, another trend emerged: the rise of generative physical AI.
During his keynote, Huang emphasized how this forthcoming shift will revolutionize factory and warehouse automation, a rising subsector he described as "a multi-trillion dollar opportunity."
This sentiment is seemingly shared by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who wrote in a weekend blog post of a near future where “AI agents join the workforce and materially change the output of companies."
To accelerate this transition, Huang unveiled NVIDIA Cosmos, an open-source platform designed to simulate real-world environments and accelerate the training of physical AI models like robots and cars. Within Cosmos, AI agents can be trained using Nemotron, a new family of large language models optimized for agentic AI. Based on Meta's (NASDAQ:META) Llama models, Nemotron leverages NVIDIA's CUDA and AI acceleration technologies.
“Cosmos will dramatically accelerate the time to train intelligent robots and advanced self-driving cars,” Rev Lebaredian, vice president of omniverse and simulation technology at NVIDIA, said at a press conference on Monday.
Later, news broke of a partnership between NVIDIA and Toyota (NYSE:TM) that will see the carmaker use NVIDIA's autonomous driving chips and software to advance its self-driving cars. NVIDIA also announced a partnership with Uber (NYSE:UBER) to use its drive logs for AI model training.
“After so many years, with Waymo and Tesla's (NASDAQ:TSLA) success, it's very clear (autonomous vehicles) have finally arrived,” said Huang on Monday. Later, during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley, he disclosed that NVIDIA's technology for autonomous driving is projected to generate US$5 billion in annual sales.
3. Bitcoin price falls below US$100,000
The Bitcoin price rose above US$102,000 early on Monday, following a weekend in which the cryptocurrency regained its 50 day simple moving average, an indicator often described as crucial for a continued bull market.
Adding to the momentum was strong speculation that MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) was preparing to increase its holdings further after CEO Michael Saylor hinted at a potential acquisition over the weekend.
The company ultimately purchased 1,070 Bitcoins for a total price of US$101 million.
Adding to bullish sentiment was a research report from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM); it indicates that Bitcoin miners' revenue increased for the second consecutive month in December. The positivity extended to altcoins as Solana’s DEX trading volume exceeded that of Ethereum and Base; the price action prompted analysts to set a US$15 target for XRP.
However, as conflicting US jobs and inflation data rolled in, traders' hopes of an interest rate cut by March diminished. Yields for 10 year Treasuries touched 4.73 percent, resulting in a broad selloff affecting cryptocurrencies and other risk-on assets like tech stocks. The top cryptocurrencies dropped between 4 and 9 percent in early trading on Tuesday.
Bitcoin performance, January 6 to 10, 2025.
Chart via CoinGecko.
US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw near-record outflows of US$582 million on Wednesday (January 8) as the downward trajectory continued. Ether ETFs saw substantial outflows totaling US$159.3 million on Wednesday, their largest on record since July. By Thursday (January 9), US$655 million in Bitcoin futures contracts had been liquidated.
Adding to the uncertainty, the US Department of Justice has reportedly been cleared to sell US$6.5 billion worth of Bitcoin seized from Silk Road, which could put downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price.
Altcoins saw greater losses, with XRP being the sole exception.
Ripple’s native cryptocurrency saw periods of recovery on Wednesday after it was reported that CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty met with Trump for dinner. Analysts at Cointelegraph project XRP could surge 40 percent if prices can break out of the current “descending triangle” pattern.
Friday’s (January 10) US jobs data release coincided with a 2.24 percent drop in Bitcoin’s price to below US$92,000 before the markets opened, followed by a rise to US$95,000 midday. Bitcoin’s latest downtrend has led market analysts to believe that the coin's price may retest areas around US$90,000 as traders contend with uncertainty regarding tariffs and their effects on the US economy, stoking concerns about the possibility of renewed inflation.
According to Santiment analyst Brianq, Bitcoin's performance can also be partly attributed to decreased purchasing activity by wallets holding between 100 and 1,000 Bitcoin, which drove Bitcoin’s most recent bull cycle.
Don't forget to follow us @INN_Technology for real-time news updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
