Dr. Stephen Twyerould reports

GUNNISON COPPER ANNOUNCES THAT RIO TINTO AND AMAZON WEB SERVICES COLLABORATE TO BRING LOW-CARBON NUTON COPPER FROM GUNNISON'S JOHNSON CAMP MINE TO U.S. DATA CENTERS

Rio Tinto's strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) will see AWS become Nuton Technology's first customer following the breakthrough first industrial-scale deployment of the innovative bioleaching technology at Gunnison Copper Corp.'s Johnson Camp copper mine in the United States last month.

Under the agreement, AWS will use the first Nuton copper ever produced in components of its U.S. data centres while also providing cloud-based data and analytics support to accelerate the optimization of Nuton's proprietary bioleaching technology at Gunnison Copper's Johnson Camp mine. Data centres use copper in a wide variety of applications, including electrical cables and busbars, windings in transformers and motors, printed circuit boards and heat sinks on processors.

Nuton also utilizes AWS platforms to simulate heap-leach performance and feed advanced analytics into Nuton's decision systems, allowing for optimised acid and water use while improving predictions for copper recovery.

Nuton's modular bioleaching system works by extracting copper from primary sulphide material using naturally occurring micro-organisms. This modular approach, combined with digital tools, enables rapid scaling and tailoring of the technology to different mineralized material bodies, reducing the pathway from concept to production.

The process produces 99.99-per-cent-pure copper cathode at the mine gate and removes the need for traditional concentrators, smelters and refineries, significantly shortening the mine-to-market supply chain. Nuton is projected to use substantially less water and have lower carbon emissions compared with conventional concentrator processing routes while also recovering value from material previously classified as waste.

Rio Tinto Copper chief executive Katie Jackson said: "This collaboration is a powerful example of how industrial innovation and cloud technology can combine to deliver cleaner, lower-carbon materials at scale. Nuton has already proven its ability to rapidly move from idea to industrial production, and AWS's data and analytics expertise will help us to accelerate optimization and verification across operations.

"Importantly, by bringing Nuton copper into AWS's U.S. data centre supply chain, we're helping to strengthen domestic resilience and secure the critical materials those facilities need, closer to where they're used. Together we can supply the copper critical to modern data infrastructure while demonstrating how mining can contribute to more sustainable supply chains."

Amazon's chief sustainability officer, Kara Hurst, said: "Amazon's climate pledge goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 requires us to innovate across every part of our operations, including how we source the materials that power our infrastructure.

"This collaboration with Nuton Technology represents exactly the kind of breakthrough we need -- a fundamentally different approach to copper production that helps reduce carbon emissions and water use. As we continue to invest in next-generation carbon-free energy technology and expand our data centre operations, securing access to lower-carbon materials produced close to home strengthens both our supply chain resilience and our ability to decarbonize at scale."

Dr. Stephen Twyerould, Gunnison Copper's chief executive officer and president, said: "Having the first Nuton copper produced from Johnson Camp used in AWS's U.S. data centres is a significant milestone for this innovative technology's ability to deliver lower-carbon, domestically produced and used copper. This collaboration highlights how innovation, digital optimization and made-in-America copper production can strengthen U.S. supply chains while supporting the growing demand for critical minerals powering modern infrastructure."

About Gunnison Copper Corp.

Gunnison Copper is a multiasset pure play copper developer and producer that controls the Cochise mining district, containing 12 known deposits within an eight-kilometre economic radius in the Southern Arizona copper belt.

Its flagship asset, the Gunnison copper project, has a measured and indicated mineral resource containing over 831.6 million tons with a total copper grade of 0.31 per cent (measured mineral resource of 191.3 million tons at 0.37 per cent and indicated mineral resource of 640.2 million tons at 0.29 per cent) and a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) yielding robust economics, including a net present value (discounted at 8 per cent) of $1.3 billion, an internal rate of return of 20.9 per cent and payback period of 4.1 years. It is being developed as a conventional operation with open-pit mining, heap leach and a solvent extraction/electrowinning (SX/EW) refinery to produce finished copper cathode on site with direct rail link.

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the conclusions reached in the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

In addition, Gunnison's Johnson Camp asset, which is now in production, is fully financed by Nuton LLC, a Rio Tinto venture, with a production capacity of up to 25 million pounds of finished copper cathode annually.

Other significant deposits controlled by Gunnison in the district, with potential to be economic satellite feeder deposits for Gunnison project infrastructure, include Strong and Harris, South Star, and eight other deposits.

For additional information on the Gunnison project, including the PEA and mineral resource estimate, please refer to the company's technical report entitled "Gunnison Project NI 43-101 Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment," dated effective Nov. 1, 2024, and available on SEDAR+.

Dr. Twyerould, a fellow of AusIMM and president and chief executive officer of the company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Twyerould has reviewed and is responsible for the technical information contained in this news release.

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