I-Pulse Welcomes Codelco as Strategic Investor

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 13, 2025--

I-Pulse Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Robert Friedland and Laurent Frescaline, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, are pleased to welcome Codelco as the company’s latest strategic investor and key partner in the development and commercialization of its disruptive pulsed power technologies.

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Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, will provide capital and real-world experience to accelerate the commercialization of I-Pulse’s breakthrough innovations for drilling, continuous underground mining, tunnelling and rock crushing. Codelco joins world leading mining majors BHP, Ivanhoe Mines, Newmont, Rio Tinto, and Teck Resources in investing in I-Pulse and advancing the development of its family of technologies.

Over nearly 20 years, I-Pulse has pioneered the application of high pulsed power technology to revolutionize the use of electrical energy. This groundbreaking technology enables the release of short yet immensely powerful electrical discharges at minimal marginal cost. I-Pulse technology can take the energy of a cell phone battery and safely and repeatedly turn it into the power output of a nuclear power plant for tiny fractions of a second. This has enabled I-Pulse to bring disruptive change to a multitude of industries, including mining, resource discovery, manufacturing, agriculture and geothermal energy.

“All of our management and scientists at I-Pulse welcome our new shareholder Codelco,” Robert Friedland said. “Minerals are crucial to our daily lives and critical to meeting global energy and technology demands. The way the mining industry has always crushed rocks with compressive force cannot deliver the step change required to produce the vast amount of copper and other critical minerals needed to improve national security, build data centers and AI infrastructure, and meet the many demands of the energy transition. Our technology can reduce the energy required to unlock critical minerals from rock by up to 80% and could render the ball and SAG mill circuits obsolete. We see I-Pulse technology as delivering a scale of change to the mining industry not seen since the invention of dynamite in 1867 by Alfred Nobel, who later went on to establish the Nobel Prize.”

“The world needs dramatically more copper and critical minerals. Traditional technology to crush rocks to extract the metals within requires vast amounts of energy, and to meet this challenge we must be more effective and more efficient," said Codelco Chairman of the Board, Máximo Pacheco. “I-Pulse’s portfolio presents opportunities with high financial and strategic potential for mining, and with this step, we maintain our leading role at the forefront of the industry and the energy transition.”

Using its proprietary high pulsed power technology in its I-ROX division, I-Pulse creates extremely powerful gigawatt-scale shock waves and tensile forces which tear rock apart from the inside. The use of tensile force fundamentally improves how we extract metals from the Earth. Current technology to crush rock requires 4% to 5% of the world’s electrical energy and electrical consumption will rapidly increase as demand for critical minerals skyrockets. I-ROX technology can massively reduce the energy required by conventional crushing and grinding technologies that use compressive force and, by breaking rock along mineralogical boundaries, can increase metal recoveries by approximately 5%. The increased recoveries will result in direct benefits for all the resource owners and host governments involved.

I-Pulse is also developing its G-Pulse drilling technology to liberate the Earth’s vast untapped resource of geothermal energy by using high pulsed power to soften hot granite before it comes into contact with a drill bit. Geothermal energy is an abundant source of carbon-free, continuous power that can significantly contribute to the world’s growing baseload energy supply. However, advanced geothermal energy systems require a massive reduction in the cost of drilling through hard granite. I-Pulse’s I-Mine division will combine the I-ROX rock crushing and the G-Pulse drilling technologies to enable continuous underground tunnelling, mining and processing, reducing costs and eliminating the need for chemical explosives. The practical outcome for underground mining is the elimination of poisonous gases, an increased productivity profile and a significant step change in safety in the mineral extraction process.

Codelco has half a century of experience in developing efficient mining technologies and deploying them on a world leading scale. The company has some of the world's largest copper reserves and produces over 5% of global copper supply. Chile is the world’s top copper producing nation and has one of the world’s largest reserves of untapped geothermal energy. More than 300 geothermal resources have been identified throughout Chile.

In addition, I-Pulse’s business verticals are developing and deploying a diverse range of pulsed power applications for various crucial industries.

ABOUT I-PULSE

I-Pulse is a private American company co-founded by Robert Friedland and Laurent Frescaline to bring high pulsed power technology into civilian sectors. I-Pulse technology – which repeatedly compresses and releases brief yet immensely powerful electrical discharges – holds the potential to address critical global issues like the unlocking of competitive geothermal base-load energy sources, efficient critical mineral production, agricultural crop protection, and disruptive welding, metal-forming and crimping solutions at industrial scale. Founded in 2007, I-Pulse has offices in New York and London and lab and manufacturing facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Detroit, Michigan and Toulouse, France.

ABOUT CODELCO

Codelco is the world’s largest copper producer, specializing in the exploration, development, and extraction of mineral resources. It processes these resources to produce refined copper and by-products, which are then marketed to customers worldwide. Since its nationalization in 1971, Codelco has contributed a total of $158 billion to the Chilean State. The company operates across seven major mining divisions in Chile: Chuquicamata, Ministro Hales, Radomiro Tomic, Gabriela Mistral, Salvador, Andina, and El Teniente, along with the Ventanas Refinery. Codelco also maintains commercial offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and Singapore.

Download the photos from the signing ceremony here: https://we.tl/t-7qA8mIoebT
Photo Credit: Chris Olivotos

Visit www.ipulse-group.com to learn more and follow @I-Pulse Group on LinkedIn

I-Pulse Co-Founder Chairman and CEO Robert Friedland and Codelco Chairman Máximo Pacheco

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — From the moment Curt Cignetti took Indiana's head coaching job, he made it clear this would be a different program.

He refused to tolerate any moral victories or close calls and instead expected to win, to win big and win immediately.

In just 737 days, he turned what had been the Football Bowl Subdivision's losingest program into the nation's No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs, a legitimate championship contender and a Big Ten champion for the first time since 1967.

“I think we were a year late,” he joked as the trophy presentation began following Saturday night's 13-10 win over No. 1 Ohio State.

To the rest of the college football world, Cignetti's incredible turnaround has come so quickly, it's likely to lift the expectations of every program in America.

He took over a team that had endured three consecutive losing seasons since qualifying for a bowl game and brashly dared anyone who thought he couldn't win to Google him. The former Nick Saban assistant delivered quickly, winning a school record 11 games and taking the Hoosiers to their first playoff appearance in Year 1.

The doubters didn't think Cignetti or the Hoosiers could come anywhere near replicating that kind of success this season.

But they've been even better in 2025. At 13-0, the Hoosiers are the last unbeaten team in major college football and have their first outright championship since 1945.

By beating the Buckeyes (12-1) in Indianapolis, they ended the nation's longest active winning streak at 16 and the Big Ten's longest winning streak in a series. When they beat then No. 3 Oregon (11-1) in October, they ended the nation's longest active regular season winning streak and the nation's longest active home winning streak.

In between they shed the label of FBS' losingest program, gladly handing the title to Northwestern. And now they have their first win over Ohio State since 1988, snapping a 30-year losing streak by winning their first conference crown in more than half a century.

Not enough? Cignetti earned his second straight Big Ten Coach of the Year Award this week, Fernando Mendoza became the first Hoosier to be named the Big Ten's top quarterback since 2001, and Mendoza also appears poised to become the first Indiana player to win the Heisman Trophy after adding two more signature moments to his resume.

His perfectly placed 17-yard TD pass to Elijah Sarratt on the sideline gave Indiana a 13-10 lead midway through the third quarter, and he sealed the win with an incredible 33-yard pass to Charlie Becker on third down with about two minutes to go — all after getting hurt on the first play of the game.

“Although I got hit, I never was going to stay down,” Mendoza said. “I’d die for my brothers on that field.”

Naturally, the brash-talking Cignetti went for it, too, and Mendoza made him look like a genius.

“I wasn't going to play not to lose,” Cignetti said.

How good has Indiana been during his two-year tenure?

They are now 24-2, the only losses coming at Ohio State and at Notre Dame last season, the two teams that played in the national championship game. Cignetti and his players have each spoken about what they learned from those experiences and how it helped steel them for the mission they've been on this season, and he's already had his contract extended twice.

Indiana heads into the playoffs with an offense and defense ranked the top five in scoring and that managed to beat Ohio State at its usual game — physically playing keep away, wearing down opponents and holding them out of the end zone.

Now a new journey begins for Cignetti and a school far more renowned for winning national titles in men's basketball, men's soccer and swimming and diving. Football has never come close — until now. And these Hoosiers believe they have what it takes to continue what seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

“It means a lot, we played for each other,” linebacker Isaiah Jones said of winning the championship. “For any of the doubters out there, this was the final nail in the coffin.”

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Indiana's Fernando Mendoza celebrates after the Big Ten championship NCAA college football game against Ohio State in Indianapolis, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)