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BP upgrades supercomputer with nine petaflop HPE system to improve its commercial research

BP has teamed up with HPE to boost the capacity of its Houston-based supercomputer facility

Energy giant BP claims to have doubled the processing power of its Houston, Texas-based high-performance compute data centre in a bid to transform commercial research.

BP has brought in HPE to overhaul its supercomputer capabilities with the aim of reducing the amoutn of time it will take to analyse large amounts of data.

The company said that its supercomputer facility now has "significantly" better computing power, speed and storage for supporting exploration, appraisal and development.

It is the fourth upgrade to the centre since it opened in 2013.

It'll also become an important part of further research and technology developments throughout the business, according to a statement from the firm.

Ahmed Hashmi, BP's head of upstream technology, described the investment as "another example of BP leading the way in digital technologies" that would "give us a clear competitive advantage".

The nine petaflop system, which is now fully functioning, will help researchers at BP study hydrocarbon flows at refineries and pipelines in a bid to improve operational safety.

Demonstrating the effect the computer is having on BP's operations, earlier this year the company deployed it to find 200 million barrels of resources across the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil firm has been using HPE's Apollo System and Intel's Knights Landing processors at the heart of its new supercomputing system, more than doubling its power from four petaflops to nine petaflops.

Following the upgrades, the computer now sports a memory of 1,140 terabytes (1.14 petabytes) and boasts 30 petabytes of storage.

Alain Andreoli, senior vice president and general manage of the Data Center Infrastructure Group at HPE, said: "With the expansion and new systems in place, BP will be able to further bolster its capabilities to accurately process and manage vast amounts of seismic data to identify new business opportunities and improve operational efficiency."

BP upgrades supercomputer with nine petaflop HPE system to improve its commercial research

BP has teamed up with HPE to boost the capacity of its Houston-based supercomputer facility

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