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Botswana Says Huge 2,492-carat Diamond Uncovered at Mine

FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are displayed during a visit to the De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (GSS) in the capital Gaborone in Botswana, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are displayed during a visit to the De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (GSS) in the capital Gaborone in Botswana, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo
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Botswana Says Huge 2,492-carat Diamond Uncovered at Mine

FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are displayed during a visit to the De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (GSS) in the capital Gaborone in Botswana, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Diamonds are displayed during a visit to the De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (GSS) in the capital Gaborone in Botswana, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

Botswana says one of the largest diamonds ever found has been unearthed at one of its mines and will be put on show on Thursday.
The Botswana government believes the huge 2,492-carat stone is the biggest discovered in the country, and the second-biggest ever brought out of a mine.
Canadian mining company Lucara Diamond Corp. said in a statement Wednesday that it recovered the “exceptional” rough diamond from its Karowe Mine in western Botswana. Lucara said it was a "high-quality" stone and was found intact. It was located using X-ray technology.
The weight would make it the largest diamond found in more than 100 years and the second-largest ever dug out of a mine after the Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905, The Associated Press reported. The Cullinan was 3,106 carats and was cut into gems, some of which form part of the British Crown Jewels.
A bigger black diamond was discovered in Brazil in the late 1800s, but it was found on the surface and was believed to have been part of a meteorite.
Botswana is the second biggest producer of diamonds and has unearthed all of the world's biggest stones in recent years.
Before this discovery, the Sewelo diamond, which was found at the Karowe Mine in 2019, was recognized as the second-biggest mined diamond in the world at 1,758 carats. It was bought by French fashion house Louis Vuitton for an undisclosed amount.
The 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond, also from Botswana's Karowe Mine, was bought by a British jeweler for $53 million in 2017.

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SKorean Pet Care Goes High-tech with AI Diagnostics

This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
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SKorean Pet Care Goes High-tech with AI Diagnostics

This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
This picture taken on July 2, 2024 shows Mozzi, a goldendoodle dog, sitting near a monitor showing its x ray results as it is processed through the 'X Caliber' software to pin point x ray abnormalities in Yongin. (Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)

When five-year-old goldendoodle Mozzi started walking "unnaturally,” his concerned owner rushed him to the vet in South Korea, where the problem was diagnosed not by humans but by AI.

South Korea, a global leader in the production of chips that power generative AI, has been quick to embrace novel uses of the technology.

One such application, "X Caliber,” is helping vets pinpoint X-ray abnormalities in seconds, making diagnostics both quicker and easier to explain, Agence France Presse reported.

The AI reading of Mozzi's X-rays showed the curly-haired goldendoodle had a 22 percent chance of knee dislocation. While not an emergency, his condition needed careful management to head off surgery.

"I wouldn't have understood the results if I didn't look at the numbers," said Mo Jae-hyun, Mozzi's owner, adding that the AI program helped him understand his pet's woes.

"Of course, I trust my vet, but looking at the results myself, it seems more credible."

The software's developer, South Korean telecom provider SK Telecom, said X Caliber has a disease detection rate of up to 86 percent.

Vets say it has transformed their ability to diagnose.

"Dogs with heart disease, for example, tend to have enlarged hearts. We use a method called VHS (vertebral heart size), which used to require measuring one by one, manually," Oh I-se, CEO of Sky Animal Medical Group, told AFP.

But now AI can reveal the result in 15 seconds, so it is "much more convenient," Oh said.

SK Telecom considers X Caliber "the beginning of AI healthcare,” said Joo Ye-seul, manager of the software's global team. "We plan further expansion into additional domains based on this."

The service is already available in the United States, Australia and some Southeast Asian countries.

In Indonesia, veterinary hospital owner Kristanya Oen says X Caliber is helping to overcome a lack of expertise and trained staff.

"There is a shortage of radiologists in Indonesian animal hospitals and it is not easy to receive radiology education in Indonesia, so we needed X Caliber to help with our diagnostics," Oen told AFP.

SK Telecom is part of the same conglomerate as SK Hynix, which launched the first high-bandwidth memory chips -- cutting-edge semiconductors that enable faster data processing and the more complex tasks of generative AI.

While many experts are questioning the payoff of lavish AI investments following a recent fall in technology stocks, the conglomerate's CEO Chey Tae-won remains committed.

SK Group must "think fiercely about next-generation products," he told employees this month.

In June, SK Group announced plans to invest 80 trillion won ($60 billion) in AI chips, services and data centers.

In South Korea, where more and more people are turning to "pet parenthood" instead of having children, it is not necessarily surprising that AI healthcare would begin with animals.

In a country with one of the world's lowest birth rates, pet ownership has roughly doubled in the last decade, official figures show.

One in four households now have at least one furry friend, and last year more strollers were sold for pets than for human babies on popular e-commerce platform, Gmarket.

The pet care industry was worth an estimated eight trillion won ($6 billion) in 2022, a fourfold increase compared with five years earlier.

The government aims to double the industry's value by 2027 and is helping support pet food and healthcare businesses through various loans and tax incentives.

Jumping on the trend, South Korean companies are working on new ways of integrating AI into pet care, including "smart toilets" for early detection of urinary diseases and "smart leashes" that monitor pulse and body temperature.

"Devices that can monitor mild to severe diseases in the daily life of pets are expected to expand," said Kim Soo-kyung, a senior manager at the Economic Research Institute in KPMG Korea.