Eni started up its new HPC3 (high performance computing) in the Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone, Italy. HPC3 allows Eni to fully support all the activities in the exploration and production sector.
Together with the co-existing HPC2 system, HPC3 will provide Eni with a sustained 5.8 PetaFLOPS, and 8.4 PetaFLOPS of peak computing capacity.
The new cluster continues along Eni’s high performance computing philosophy based on hybrid architectures, by using top end GP-GPUs as computational accelerators. Driven by internal Eni’s research activity, the cluster design targets both the most efficient energy solution and the delivery of the maximum computational power required by the most advanced proprietary algorithms. HPC3 records an energy efficiency consumption of 3.66 gigaFLOPS/Watt; moreover, overall efficiency is also maximized by the direct free-cooling solution provided by the hosting Eni Green Data Center. HPC3 is an intermediate step towards the next evolution, the HPC4, expected at the beginning of 2018. With HPC4 Eni’s target is to overcome the barrier of 10 PetaFLOPS of computing power.
“The start-up of the new HPC3 supercomputer and the next comer HPC4 will enable Eni to deploy the most advanced and sophisticated proprietary codes developed by our research for [exploration and production] activities,” said Claudio Descalzi, CEO, Eni. “These technologies will provide Eni with unprecedented accuracy and resolution in seismic imaging, geological modelling and reservoir dynamic simulation, allowing us to further accelerate overall cycle times in the upstream process and to sustain [exploration and production] performances.”
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