Specifically, the remote-controlling of rock drilling jumbos helps reduce the number of on-site operators by 80 percent, guarantees the safety of miners, saves shift time and boosts efficiency greatly. Meanwhile, in the subsequent transportation section, the unmanned electric locomotive system has realized remote loading, unmanned driving and automatic unloading, improving efficiency by 25 percent.

Meanwhile, the deep shaft of the Jiaojia Gold Mine has realized unmanned operation of forklifts. In September 2022, Shandong Gold Group and Huawei built the first WiFi-6 Mesh-supported network for the mine. A superior network connection is still one of the core requirements of gold mines because networking is the foundation for digitalization and intelligence.

Intelligent technology has helped Shandong Gold Group reduce the number of underground operators by more than 3,046, saving 460 million yuan in total labor costs.

But challenges still exist. Wang Chengxiang, head of the Jiaojia Gold Mine, said one of the challenges is how to quickly transmit information in a limited space. The special geographical environment of high temperatures and humidity also requires targeted solutions. At the same time, the industry is in great need of interdisciplinary talents.

Moreover, smart mines include not only unmanned operations, but information infrastructure construction, geological security systems, tunneling systems, intermediate mining systems, transportation systems, sorting systems and security systems.

Now, the top three research fields of smart mines in China are green management, accounting for 6.11 percent of all research; driverless technologies, accounting for 6.09 percent; and information and communication, accounting for 6.02 percent, data from market research company ITtime showed.

Chen from Huawei said there are more than 4,000 coal mines in China and more than 10,000 metal mines. All underground geological conditions are different and how to adapt solutions to each specific environment is a very big challenge.

"The journey of mining's intelligent technological transformation only has a starting point and no end point," Chen added.