Oil and gas companies take aim at pandemic with digital firepower

摘要

THE oil and gas industry has come forward to offer help in the battle against Covid-19 on multiple fronts, from stepping up production of chemicals needed to make hand sanitiser to contributing 3D printing capacity for the manufacture of medical and personal protection equipment. Companies have also made significant financial contributions to pay for emergency supplies and facilities. But perhaps the most effective tool in the Covid-19 fight, and the longer-term effort to mitigate future epidemics, could be the industry's vast computing capacity. Supercomputers are helping researchers process and analyse huge volumes of relevant data as they search for treatments and develop accurate models of the coronavirus' spread. Last month, Italy's Eni said it had made its supercomputing infrastructure, including the new HPC5 system, and its molecular modelling skills available for research in the fight against the pandemic.