Komatsu and AIM Put Physical AI at the Centre of Autonomous Earthmoving Komatsu and AIM Put Physical AI at the Centre of Autonomous Earthmoving

Mining’s Hidden Bottleneck: Why Heavy Fabrication Is Turning to Physical AI

Not long ago, our team visited a family-owned mining equipment manufacturer in Wyoming. Business was good. Orders were coming in. Demand for their truck bodies, water tanks, and mining attachments was growing. Their biggest challenge wasn’t finding customers, it was figuring out how to build enough equipment to keep up with the demand. The solution seemed straightforward: add a second shift. The problem was finding the welders to staff it. That …

Komatsu and AIM Put Physical AI at the Centre of Autonomous Earthmoving Komatsu and AIM Put Physical AI at the Centre of Autonomous Earthmoving

Komatsu and AIM Put Physical AI at the Centre of Autonomous Earthmoving Komatsu has spent nearly two decades proving that heavy machines can run themselves. Its FrontRunner system put the first commercial autonomous haul trucks into mines in 2008, and in April 2026 the company became the first manufacturer to commission a thousand ultra-class driverless trucks, machines that have collectively shifted more than 11.5 billion tonnes of material. Ye…