Nokia has announced that it has been chosen by Sigma Lithium, a leading global lithium producer, to deploy the first private LTE wireless campus network in the Americas that supports the mining of lithium – a metal critical to the production of batteries that power electric vehicles.
Nokia will work with local telecoms systems integrator Alcon Engenharia de Sistemas (Alcon) to roll out the private wireless network, which will support 200 Sigma employees and, say the partners, add multiple innovative mining applications that boost productivity and operational efficiency.
There is little doubt about the demand driving this deal. As the world converts to more energy-efficient vehicles to combat climate change, demand for lithium is skyrocketing. Other demand drivers include solar energy storage and electronic devices.
Nokia says that exploration globally is expected to increase more than ten times by 2035. With the addition of a Nokia private LTE network based on Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (Nokia DAC), Sigma Lithium is ratcheting up its goal to produce next-generation EV batteries in a carbon-neutral, socially and environmentally sustainable manner – deploying robust dedicated bandwidth and throughput across its sites.
Nokia says that connecting workers with certified ruggedised devices, industrial edge computing and a catalogue of ecosystem-neutral applications will contribute to the creation of a safer working environment and enhance productivity and operational efficiency with crucial mining apps such as dispatch, push-to-talk/push-to-video, and smart badge systems.
