Big River Steel and Noodle.ai, a San Francisco-based enterprise artificial-intelligence (AI) company, announced a contract to implement enterprise AI to optimize operations at Big River Steel’s recently completed $1.3 billion steel production facility in Osceola, Ark. The plant is designed to be both environmentally resourceful and technologically advanced. Noodle.ai’s predictive AI engines, configured on its industrial operations platform, will help optimize a vast array of functions throughout the mill.           

According to Stephen Pratt, CEO of Noodle.ai, “This mill possesses a rich trove of sensor data for our platform to leverage, allowing us to help unlock breakthrough improvements in areas such as maintenance planning, production-line scheduling, logistics operations and environmental protection.”

According to Big River Steel, the AI algorithms will allow the mill to react to production challenges automatically. In January, the mill’s first full month of production, Big River Steel produced over 63,000 tons of hot-rolled steel.