Total’s Pangea III Supercomputer, Ranked WW First Most Powerful HPC in Industry

Total SA has brought on line its new Pangea III supercomputer, multiplying the group’s computing power by almost 5 to 31.7 petaflops (equivalent to 170,000 laptops combined) and tripling its storage capacity to 76PB (equivalent to about 50 million HD movies).

Pangea III’s capacity adds to its predecessors (Pangea I and II) and is ranked the ≠1 most powerful supercomputer in the industry, and the 11th most powerful computer, public or private (TOP500 ranking).

“Pangea III’s additional computing power enhances Total’s operational excellence. It enables Total to reduce geological risks in exploration and development, accelerate project maturation and delivery, and increases the value of our assets through optimized field operations, with all this at a lower cost,” stated Arnaud Breuillac, president, Total Exploration & Production.

Developed by IBM Corp., the HPC also enhances energy efficiency, dividing the power consumption per petaflop by 11 (1.5 MW for Pangea III versus 4.5 MW for Pangea I and II). 

Pangea III has varied applications, particularly in three different fields: 

• Exploration and development seismic imaging: New algorithms can process huge amounts of data more accurately, at higher resolution and help to more reliably locate hydrocarbons below ground. This is useful in complex geologic environments with resources trapped under salt, such as in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, Angola and the Eastern Mediterranean.
• Development and production models: Increased computing power allows to use innovative reservoir simulation methods that, for example, integrate more efficiently a field’s production history, to generate more reliable predictive production models, much faster than it used to.
• Asset valuation and selectivity: Pangea III also contributes to business efficiency by enabling an early assessment of the value of exploration acreage and asset opportunities, thus enhancing selectivity in new ventures.

Pangea III’s enhanced capabilities will also extend to new applications within the group, such as molecular modeling to optimize refining processes or improve lubricants’ properties. In addition, it will enable R&D teams to test complex new algorithms and facilitate the development of AI solutions, a growth area for Total as illustrated by company’s partnership with Google Cloud.