Natural Resources Canada has committed up to $40 million to create the Canadian Digital Core Library

August 24, 2026

This past week I was invited to attend an important funding announcement at Laurentian University.

Natural Resources Canada has committed up to $40 million to create the Canadian Digital Core Library, a national platform that will allow access to digitized drill core data from across the country.

Canada stores millions of meters of geological drill cores in government repositories across the country. Drill cores are solid, cylinder-shaped samples of rock, sediment, or soil collected to inform interpretations of geology useful for mineral and energy exploration.

They provide detailed information about what lies beneath the Earth’s surface at different depths which can inform the understanding and composition of mineral deposits.

By making this public data easier to access and use, the CDCL will support more informed exploration and investment decisions, improving the competitiveness of Canada’s mining industry.

Laurentian University is partnering on the project with Creative Destruction Lab, a startup program, on an AI database aimed at spurring the growth of the mining industry in Canada.

Creative Destruction Lab CEO Sonia Sennik told us they are creating a digital database of mining deposits in the north that will feed into “a central platform that can then aggregate all the different data from across the country.”

Laurentian University is part of the research team on the project and will be receiving up to $1 million in federal funding for its work on the nationwide project.