Microsoft has provided BHP with its most advanced artificial intelligence tools to extract copper from low grade rock, which normally contains about 1 percent copper. BHP turned to Microsoft Discovery, the division leading Microsoft’s quantum computing push, which has halved its timeline to build a working quantum computer, saying a machine will be ready by 2029. Working with Microsoft and computational chemists at Prescience Insilico, BHP ran tens of thousands of quantum chemistry calculations to narrow half a million molecules called reagents to a shortlist now facing the bench in Australian laboratories. The job ran on Microsoft Discovery, an Azure platform made generally available on Wednesday that deploys teams of "agentic" AI. BHP vice-president of innovation Jessica Farrell said copper is used in electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and grid infrastructure. The BHP project used AI, not a quantum chip. Microsoft says the Majorana 2 processor’s qubits are 1,000 times more reliable than the chip it built a year ago, bringing a scalable quantum computer set to be available in just a few years.