A computer engineer who accidentally dropped a hard drive containing around 180 million euros worth of bitcoins plans to use artificial intelligence to search through thousands of tons of landfills.

James Howells dumped the device from an old laptop containing 8,000 bitcoins in 2013 during an office cleanout and now believes it is in a landfill in Newport, South Wales, according to foreign media reports.

The council has previously denied the 37-year-old's repeated requests to search the site due to environmental concerns, but he has set up a technology scheme to find the digital assets.

His new proposal would use artificial intelligence technology to operate "a mechanical arm" that would filter the waste, before it was manually handled in a pop-up facility near the landfill site.

According to the plans he will employ a number of experts - including environmental ones, and while the search is ongoing he will employ robot dogs as security, so that no one else can try to steal the hard drive.

Howells believes that the search will take about nine to 12 months, however, even if he receives permission from the council, there is no guarantee that such a search will be successful or that the bitcoins he has mined during those years ago will be recovered from the hard drive.

But if they are, he has vowed to use the money to help the Newport community and invest in a number of projects.

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