Mariana Minerals is a vertically integrated critical minerals company that applies software engineering, machine learning, and industrial automation to mining and mineral processing. Its operations span lithium extraction and copper mining and refining, with all projects located in the United States. The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and led by a team with backgrounds at Tesla, Palantir, and the mining industry.
The company has built two operational facilities and a proprietary control platform:
- Lithium One - A commercial lithium extraction facility that uses oil and gas produced water as its feedstock. The company describes it as the world's first GWh-scale commercial lithium extraction operation of this kind.
- Copper One - A copper mine and refinery built around autonomous operations, described as the first autonomy-first copper mine and refinery.
- PlantOS - A proprietary platform that uses reinforcement learning to autonomously control mineral processing operations in real time. The company draws an explicit comparison to the technology underpinning self-driving vehicles.
Mariana Minerals frames the case for its approach in terms of speed. Conventional mining projects typically take around 12 years from discovery to production; the company's stated goal is to deliver 10 critical mineral projects in 10 years. Its target minerals - lithium, copper, and others in the critical minerals category - serve supply chains for clean energy, AI infrastructure, and defense technologies.