Major copper producer Codelco has joined a growing group of top-tier miners, including BHP, Rio Tinto, Newmont, Ivanhoe Mines, and Teck Resources, investing in I-Pulse, a US-based company developing pulsed power technologies that could transform the way minerals are discovered, mined and processed.

Codelco’s investment will provide capital and operational expertise to help commercialise I-Pulse’s suite of high-voltage, short-duration electrical discharge technologies. These innovations promise to reduce the energy required for drilling, rock crushing and underground mining – processes that currently consume between 4% and 5% of global electricity.

“All of our management and scientists at I-Pulse welcome our new shareholder Codelco,” said I-Pulse co-founder, chair and CEO Robert Friedland. “Our technology can reduce the energy required to unlock critical minerals from rock by up to 80% and could render the ball and SAG mill circuits obsolete. We see I-Pulse technology as delivering a scale of change to the mining industry not seen since the invention of dynamite in 1867 by Alfred Nobel, who later went on to establish the Nobel Prize.”

Codelco chairperson Máximo Pacheco said the investment aligned with the company’s strategy to accelerate the deployment of energy-efficient technologies. “The world needs dramatically more copper and critical minerals,” he said. “Traditional technology to crush rocks to extract the metals within requires vast amounts of energy, and to meet this challenge we must be more effective and more efficient. I-Pulse’s portfolio presents opportunities with high financial and strategic potential for mining, and with this step, we maintain our leading role at the forefront of the industry and the energy transition.”

Through its I-ROX division, I-Pulse uses its proprietary high pulsed power technology to create gigawatt-scale shock waves that fracture rock from within, potentially improving metal recoveries by around 5% while sharply reducing energy use. The company’s G-Pulse drilling technology is aimed at unlocking geothermal energy resources by softening hard granite formations before drilling, a process that could lower the cost of next-generation geothermal energy systems.

I-Pulse is also advancing applications beyond mining through divisions such as Bmax, which uses electrical shockwaves to weld and form metals without heat or pressure; BlueSpark Geothermal, which clears wellbore blockages without chemicals; I-Terra, which uses AI and electrical pulses to kill weeds without herbicides; and I-Pulse Water, which locates deep aquifers.

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I-Pulse was co-founded by Friedland and Laurent Frescaline in 2007. The company operates research and manufacturing facilities in the US and France, with offices in New York and London.