By: Richard Roberts - Editorial Director, Beacon Events

A unique off-world prospecting gadget, world-first surface and underground electric-diesel mine vehicles, cutting-edge AI-driven software and a sea of new brands will await visitors to the 2025 International Mining and Resources Conference + Expo (IMARC) in Sydney from October 21-23.

And that’s just a snippet of what’s new and sure to turn heads at the Sydney ICC this year when Australia’s most important annual mining event opens its doors to a record number of attendees and an incredible line-up of international presenters and delegations.

Utah governor Spencer Cox, Peru Central Reserve Bank president Julio Velarde Flores, the European Commission’s Joaquim Nunes de Almeida, Botswana’s minister of minerals and energy Bogolo Joy Kenewendo, and Queensland’s mines minister Dale Last are some of the leaders bringing vital international perspectives – and invitations – to IMARC for the first time.

They will be joined by inaugural delegations from South Africa and the European Union. Volkswagen, is on that list, too.

Italy, Sweden and Morocco will debut country pavilions at IMARC 2025.

As well as new IMARC brands such as Quartex, Sany, Volvo, CATL, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Birdon, FLS, Movus, Fast2Mine and many others, the event’s 20,000-square-metre exhibition area will be jam-packed with product launches and application unveilings.

One of the most impressive introductions will be first-time participant Birdon’s Bulga tailings relocation project case study, a signature mining project for the Port Macquarie-based company known around the world for its maritime and defence engineering expertise and long list of completed assignments. The circa-30-million-cubic-metre material movement project for Glencore is one of the largest exercises of its type ever undertaken and is an integral part of a plan to extend the Bulga mine’s life by 25 years.

SANY’s 136-tonne-payload (150 short ton) SET150S hybrid surface mining truck will also be a hot topic of discussion at the company’s IMARC booth and most likely next year in the Pilbara region of WA where it will start appearing en masse. Senior SANY mining leaders are keen to outline the group’s mining vision for the next five years and see IMARC as the perfect place to do it.

What else is new at IMARC 2025?

• Australian terrestrial mineral exploration technology leader Fleet Space Technologies has been expanding its customer base on Earth with Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT). Now, along comes a SPIDER. Fleet Space’s lunar seismic technology, Seismic Payload for Interplanetary Discovery, Exploration and Research (SPIDER), is set to land on the Moon’s surface next year aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and collect subsurface data vital to scientific research that could underpin permanent infrastructure for humans on the Moon. IMARC offers a chance to get up close to SPIDER.
• Volvo Group Australia will be part of IMARC’s first Business Sweden pavilion and will also showcase its full “Toward Zero” group vision via a dedicated Volvo stand. A spokesperson says the vision encompasses “our commitment to sustainability, safety and society”. It is embodied in part in the equipment offerings of Volvo Trucks, Volvo Construction Equipment and Volvo Penta, which will be represented at IMARC.
• Hitachi Construction Machinery will unveil its new real-time asset health intelligence and management digital product branding and offering. Senior company leaders will also be on hand to talk through HCM’s updated value proposition.
• Some of the world’s best new mining technology firms will line IMARC’s first Innovation & Investment Alley and take part in discussions about future technology trends. One roundtable will bring mining tech accelerator leaders from Founders Factory and Unearthed together with mining companies and tech innovators to talk about funding mining tech into the future. Founders Factory has just announced a new cohort of startups to receive funding and support under its accelerator partnership with Rio Tinto. Founders Factory and Rio Tinto Ventures have now chosen 18 start-ups from more than 1500 reviewed globally in the past 18 months to be part of their program to find better and more sustainable ways to provide the materials the world needs.
• ConnectOre is a new mining industry knowledge platform that will get international attention at IMARC. International Copper Association Australia CEO John Fennell, who will be one of the senior industry people quizzed about the platform’s origins and purpose in a panel discussion, says literal mountains of published research and other information have gone into ConnectOre, which is supported by generative AI. “Essentially that enables a miner anywhere in the world to know what the best technologies in the world are for ventilation, for conveying, for ore sorting technologies, etc. They can find out where the industry is going in four-or-five years’ time and what's the best today. And they can ask the AI, where can they get it? Has it been tested in real time? Can I integrate that with other technologies to enhance the operational efficiency of my mine? And in five minutes they can become a world expert on his topic and share it with their team. And that means we can make better decisions and work towards operational efficiency and lower emissions.”
• AI will also be put under a spotlight by the Gold Industry Group, which will host the IMARC Leadership Breakfast and ask, how is the technology changing the industry today and what opportunities are on the horizon? Evolution Mining sustainability VP Fiona Murfitt, Gold Fields senior manager technology Rob Derries and CSIRO Mineral Resources director Louise Fisher will have some, if not all, of the answers.
• Renowned globally for its mining innovation heritage and current supply powerhouses, “Team Sweden”, led by Business Sweden, says its first-ever country pavilion at IMARC will showcase world-leading solutions for sustainable, automated and electrified mining. The organisation will also co-host an exclusive Team Sweden Reception with the Swedish Embassy to bring together Australian and Swedish executives and policymakers.
• Australia’s largest ASX-listed mining technology company, IMDEX, has made some important strategic acquisitions over the past few years and is excited about the latest, Norway-based Earth Science Analytics (ESA). ESA’s EarthNET – a cloud-based, AI-driven geoscience platform – is moving from development to early commercial deployment in oil and gas. “The integration of EarthNET into our digital portfolio enhances our earth knowledge offering and accelerates our AI capability across multiple sectors,” says IMDEX CEO, Paul House.

Also hot off the press ...

The above represents just some of what is going to be grabbing the attention of visitors in and around the main conference theatres at Australia’s international mining week.

Stand by, though, for plenty more news to flow before and during IMARC 2025. Here is a taste:

• We’ve been plugging IMARC’s first Mining Operators Series for frontline industry professionals, but the stellar list of speakers continues to grow. Latest additions include AngloGold Ashanti supply chain operations VP Sarah Davies and Byrnecut’s automation & electrification manager, Luke Clements.
• Global management consulting firm Bain & Co will use its first IMARC appearance to present a new report on capital deployment in mining.
• Futurist and founder of Sydney-based Thinque, Anders Sorman-Nilsson, will give a keynote at the inaugural Rockstars Mining Investor Event, hosted by Investability, Tau Media, The Capital Network and The Stock Network.
• WoodMac metals supremo Julian Kettle returns to Australia to speak at IMARC after a tour Down Under earlier in 2025. “My impression of Australia and its vast potential remain unchanged,” he says. “Huge opportunities to deliver the required raw materials and metals to deliver whatever pathway you believe in. But – there is always a but – it is getting harder to develop mines [which are] costing more and taking longer.”
• The inaugural Mining Beacon Innovation Award winners will be announced from a high-grade field of entrants: names such as Weir, Epiroc, Hexagon and many others. RFC Ambrian, which has picked its share of winners in the mining tech space, is sponsoring the award.
• An exclusive roundtable hosted by the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) will bring together space and mining sector leaders to probe future-readiness and ESG challenges, technology transfer in robotics, AI and automation, and joint workforce development and training pathways.