In the recent Scientific Computing World, there is an article that talks to Laurent Billy, CEO of Visualization Sciences Group (VSG), on some of the uses of GPUs in the Oil and Gas industry. In particular, they get into the benefits of the low power consumption in comparison to similarly powerful CPU’s and some of the new features this enables:
He adds that many companies are now looking towards moving data processing operations nearer to the drilling location, on a ship, or even on the drilling platform itself, where power and space are even more constrained. “Typically, they put the data onto a number of hard drives and fly it by helicopter back to the mainland, where it is loaded into a computer. They compute whatever they are working on, and then they often have to send the results back in the same manner! If they could do all of the processing on site, they’ld be saving a lot of time and money, not only in terms of just moving the data, but also in terms of avoiding idle time on the drilling platform while they wait for the results.”
