Italian energy company Eni switched on its new HPC6 supercomputer on Christmas Day.
The 477.9 petaflops system ranked fifth on the latest edition of the Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers. Eni first announced its intention to build the supercomputer in January 2024.
HPC6 is an HPE Cray EX235a system powered by AMD 3rd generation Epyc CPUs, around 14,000 AMD MI250X GPUs, and utilizes HPE’s Slingshot-11 fabric. Housed at Eni’s Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone, a province in the Italian region of Lombardy, the supercomputer is estimated to have cost more than €100 million ($104m).
Eni plans to use the HPC6 to process data necessary for uncovering new oil and gas reservoirs whilst also helping the company improve the production efficiency of its renewable energy resources.
“Innovation and the constant evolution of technologies are fundamental to maintaining and strengthening Eni’s leadership in the energy transition. Technological advancements allow us to use energy more efficiently by reducing emissions and promoting the development of new energy solutions,” said CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi. “We have integrated supercomputing throughout our entire business chain, transforming it into an indispensable lever for achieving net zero and creating value.”
In addition to HPC6, Eni also owns two supercomputer systems, HPC4 and HPC5, both of which are also housed at the company’s Green Data Center and have a combined computing power of 70 petaflops.
According to Eni, its Green Data Center is one of the most energy-efficient and carbon footprint-friendly computing centers in Europe. Partly powered by a 1MW photovoltaic power plant, for 92 percent of the year, the machines are cooled by air circulating at low speed, reducing the use of air conditioning throughout the facility.
