It was a video of a waving robot that attracted NASA to the world's most isolated city.

Engineers at Woodside Petroleum in Perth were just "messing around" teaching a toy robot to wave when they filmed it, Chief Technology Officer Shaun Gregory told a conference recently, but NASA liked what it saw. The US space agency got in touch, and the two are now studying how to use robot technology to tackle problems in remote and difficult locations.

This sort of collaboration represents exactly what Western Australia is trying to achieve. With some of the world's biggest resource companies operating in the region, the state aims to become a hot spot for developing technology to help miners and oil explorers cut costs and boost efficiency.

"Western Australia has the opportunity to cement a place as the world's epicentre of resources technology and innovation," Mike Henry, the incoming chief executive officer of mining giant BHP, said at the inaugural Resources Technology Showcase in Perth last week. "Whether its autonomous haulage, robotics, drones, big data or artificial intelligence, we're changing the way we work."