Petrobras is four-time champion: Pégaso, the BRL 300 million supercomputer, displaces Dragão and Atlas; supermachine is the largest in Latin America and the 5th most powerful in the world oil industry!

Petrobras supercomputer has processing power equivalent to the sum of six million cell phones or 150 modern laptops

The Brazilian oil giant is a four-time champion! With processing power equivalent to the sum of six million cell phones or 150 modern laptops, Petrobras' supercomputer Pégaso occupies 1st place in high performance and eco-efficiency computers in Latin America, for the fourth consecutive year. Pegasus is also the 5th largest oil industry in the world!

According to the TOP500.Org and Green500 rankings, the result reaffirms the state-owned company's leadership in high-performance computing (HPCs). The supermachine surpasses, in both aspects, the Dragão and the Atlas, which also belong to Petrobras.

Petrobras' supercomputer reduces uncertainties and project risks, as well as the time between a new discovery of an oil field and the start of its production.

With the result of the ranking, the company obtains the fourth title in HPCs. In 2019 the company took first place with Fênix; in 2020 with Atlas and in 2021 with Dragão. Investing in these machines allows Petrobras to apply its technical knowledge in the processing of geophysical and geological data to reduce uncertainties and project risks, as well as the time between a new discovery of an oil field and the start of its production.

“We are very pleased to receive this result. Expanding data processing allows Petrobras to generate ever sharper subsurface images of areas mapped for oil and natural gas exploration and production, in addition to reducing the processing time for this information. This contributes to optimizing production, increasing the recovery factor of current reserves and maximizing the efficiency of the company's exploratory projects”, explains Petrobras' Director of Exploration and Production, Fernando Borges.

With its 35 meters, Pégaso weighs 30 tons of components distributed in racks

The investment in Pégaso, of R$300 million, as well as in other machines that accelerate the processing of geophysical and geological data, algorithm training in data science projects and simulations of flows in reservoirs is essential to make viable strategic programs such as EXP100 , which aims to achieve 100% use of data and knowledge in exploratory projects, CEOS and PROD1000, which aims to reduce deadlines for starting production in a field.

Pegasus will increase the company's current processing capacity from 42 to 63 Petaflops (Peak DP). The company plans to reach a total processing capacity of 80 Petaflops, with the addition of 4 smaller machines. To give you an idea, 1 Petaflop is equivalent to 1 quadrillion mathematical operations per second. This potential is important to enable digital technology initiatives, benefiting the efficiency of operations, making the company more resilient to changes in business scenarios.

With data throughput of 21 Petaflops (Peak DP), Pegasus has nearly the sum of Dragon (14 Petaflops) and Atlas (8,9 Petaflops) combined. There are 678 terabytes of RAM memory and a 400 gbps network, in addition to 2016 GPUs – Grafic Process Units, in the acronym in English. It can be said that the Pegasus is a “heavyweight” piece of equipment. There are 30 tons of components distributed in racks that, lined up, add up to 35 meters. The machine will be operating at full capacity in December this year.

Petrobras' Supermachine ranks as the 5th largest in the oil and gas industry and the 33rd largest global supercomputer.

Another feature of the Pegasus supercomputer is energy efficiency. When in full production, Pégaso will have a maximum consumption of 1,5 MW, equivalent to the annual consumption of a city of 6.800 inhabitants, such as Santo Antonio do Pinhal (SP).

“When preparing this HPC project, several choices and technical requirements were made in order to reduce consumption, such as the choice of mathematical accelerators (GPUs), the most eco-efficient that exist, and the demand for high-efficiency sources, says Paulo Palaia , Director of Digital Transformation and Innovation at Petrobras”.

Even if it doesn't count towards the Green500 ranking, the place where the supercomputers are installed also contributes to the best performance of the machines. Pégaso is housed in a Data Processing Center (DPC), which only uses clean energy, with a customized cooling environment for the supercomputer, in order to increase its energy efficiency.

With the disclosure of the TOP500 ranking, Pégaso is positioned as the 5th largest in the oil and gas industry and 33rd largest global supercomputer.