China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies will cooperate with Asia-Potash International Investment (亚钾国际投资), one of the largest potassic fertilizer suppliers in China, on smart mining, including a project in Laos, reported Yicai Global on October 10.

Huawei will plan and construct a smart IP network for the private use of Asia-Potash's mine in Laos, the Guangzhou-based company, which owns mining rights in the Southeast Asian country for potassic salt The October 9 annoucemeent did not mention financial details of the partnership.

The telecommunications equipment giant will provide Asia-Potash’s mine with a smart system to monitor and remotely control operations to reduce human labor underground, or even achieve a fully automated work mode. Huawei will also help Asia-Potash to establish a workplace safety system that uses artificial intelligence to detect and alert the company about any potential accidents as early as possible.

The two partners also plan to join hands on building an industrial internet platform to realize a unified and more efficient way of collecting and analyzing mining production data, the firm added.

Huawei has been diversifying its business as the company's mobile phone business has been hit by US sanctions since 2019. Smart mining is one of the important new ventures the technology giant is developing, besides Asia-Potash, Huawei has also assisted Lanhua Sci-Tech Venture(兰花科创), a Shanghai listed coal miner, in digitizing its operations.

Asia-Potash's stock price rose as much as 3.9 percent to RMB30.35 ($4.30) intraday and closed 1.6 percent up, according to Yicai Global.