The digitization path of the company is now in its crucial phase and has experienced a milestone with the launch of the new HP super-calculatorC4, which equips Eni with the most powerful computing system in the world at an industrial level. The CEO, Claudio Descalzi, took stock of a meeting organized at the Eni Green Data Center together with representatives of the scientific and business world. The supercomputing system will also be powered by the new photovoltaic system installed at the center, the first to come into operation under the Progetto Italia project.

Eni has entered the crucial phase of its strategic digitalization path, with 150 projects transversal to all business areas and beyond 150 managers involved, and with the aim of achieving significant economic and operational benefits in the short and medium term. The company has taken the path of digital transformation for several decades, long before the industry began to talk about it, and over time has managed to transform the need to process large amounts of data into a great competitive advantage. But if technological progress today offers opportunities that were unimaginable until recently, without people and skills it would be an extremely powerful but unproductive tool. Eni's digital transformation is therefore a story of integration between people, skills, technology and information technology. Thanks to this mix, Eni has managed to achieve extraordinary results, such as the historical Egyptian discovery of Zohr, the largest ever made in the Mediterranean Sea. This is what emerged today as part of the "Imagine Energy" event. Stories of data, people and new horizons ", which was held at the Eni Green Data Center (GDC) of Ferrera Erbognone and in which the Managing Director of Eni, Claudio Descalzi, the President of the National Council of Research (CNR), Prof. Massimo Inguscio, exponents of the scientific world and representatives of Eni.

Eni's CEO has outlined the digitization process undertaken by the company, started thirty years ago and which recently experienced a fundamental milestone with the launch at the Green Data Center of the HPC4 supercomputer, which made the Eni calculation system the most powerful in the world on an industrial level. Eni's digital transformation, intended to involve all areas of the company's activities, involves a plurality of transversal objectives: from improving the safety and health of the company's operators, to further increasing the level of reliability, operability and technical integrity of the plants, with benefits both in terms of safety and environmental impact; from the strengthening of the economic-operating performances, to the development of new business models and to the speed of decision-making processes, which will become increasingly data-driven. In the long term, digital transformation is integrated into a broader process of evolution that will make Eni even more integrated into its processes, increasingly able to combine emerging digital skills with traditional technical skills, open to innovation in collaboration with the most advanced technological start-ups, faster in their operating and work processes, increasingly attractive to young talents.

Eni began to approach the digital world with the first powerful computers and proprietary software associated with the calculation and processing of huge amounts of data: both geological ones related to exploration, and those at the base of fluid dynamics simulations in the reservoir. Subsequently, the company initiated the development of proprietary algorithms in exploration activities. In the 2000 years, Eni then rewrote its algorithms, engineering them according to an integrated hardware structure (CPU + GPU) that allowed to overcome the sequential logic and to work by computational clusters. In this way, each processing is decomposed into different "jobs" which are then recomposed at the end, allowing to work in parallel faster.

Today, the inclusion of HPC4 in Eni's supercomputing system allows the company to have a computing infrastructure with a peak capacity of 22,4 Petaflops, i.e. 22,4 million billion of mathematical operations carried out in a second. But power and technology, even in its most advanced forms, while offering fundamental competitive advantages, without human skills are unproductive tools. In fact, Eni's computing infrastructure works on the basis of a single ecosystem of extremely advanced and complex algorithms, created, developed over more than ten years and owned by Eni, and based on the experience and know-how of company, which also availed itself of the collaboration of some of the most important Italian research institutes. Having a program created and developed internally means full power of control, flexibility, speed and continuous development of skills. Eni's supercomputers provide strategic support to the company's digital transformation process along its entire value chain, from the exploration and development phases of oil & gas fields, to the management of the 'big data' generated in the operation phase by all production assets (upstream, refining and chemical).

Eni's supercomputing system is located within the Green Data Center, Eni's home of digital evolution, one of the first in Europe in terms of type and size and among the first in the world for energy efficiency. The GDC houses a hybrid supercomputing infrastructure capable of absorbing half the energy of a traditional system, and reducing CO2 emissions. In 2017, in particular, a great achievement has been achieved in terms of energy saving, obtaining a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1,175 compared to a world average of 1,8 (EPA data, US Environmental Protection Agency). As a result, the amount of CO2 saved to the atmosphere over the three-year period 2014-2017 was 18.000 Ton and the electricity saved in the same period amounts to over 50.000 MWh. To meet the energy needs of the entire system, Eni has chosen low carbon content solutions and opted for an air cooling system rather than water. The infrastructure is powered by the Enipower thermoelectric power plant, located next to the center, and, as a novelty, by a photovoltaic park of about 1 MW installed at the facility. The new photovoltaic system is the first to enter into operation under the Italian Project of Eni, which aims to generate energy from renewable sources in the company's industrial sites. The plant will generate energy that will be entirely consumed by the Green Data Center and which will meet over 15% of the HPC4's energy needs.

 

🎤Eni: history of a digital transformation based on skills, which comes from afar and anticipates the future

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