The opening of the Chilean facility will be followed by a second centre in Changsha, China, and additional ones will be introduced in other mining regions during 2020-21.

The centres will provide automated monitoring and predictive maintenance services for mineral processing equipment, components and processes.

"Metso performance centers are hubs for all our remote digital services," Metso chief digital officer Jani Puroranta said.  

"They integrate Metso Metrics support, gearless mill drive monitoring and remote process optimisation experts into a new collaborative environment. This allows us to better service our global customers in real time."

To date, Metso said it had over 800 active and connected crushers, and it had implemented over 600 advanced process control and automation projects, as well as more than 315 installations of specialised process optimisation instrumentation.

The Santiago centre is already live from within temporary facilities but will soon move to new, customised premises.

At the centre, a multi-disciplinary team of experts will analyse the incoming data and make recommendations to customers.

Metso said the services offered are vendor-agnostic, so available for both Metso and non-Metso equipment.

The centre also uses new remote-monitoring solutions for gearless mill drives, obtained as part of Metso's acquisition of the Chilean mining service provider HighService Service earlier this year.