It is learned that Lenovo Group (00992) won the contract to provide new HPCs to Petrobras, beating Dell and Atos Group of France. The contract is worth 0.51 billion real ($93.5 million).

The new HPC will mainly be used for physical imaging, geological statistical modeling, as well as other research and resource mapping applications. It is reported that a total of 13 companies participated in the bid, including major IT infrastructure companies such as Lenovo, Dell, Atos, Schneider Electric, NTT Brasil and Multilaser. Some of these companies were disqualified because they did not meet the bidding terms.

According to Petrobras' requirements, server manufacturers must have at least one HPC solution listed in the "TOP500 HPC Rankings." Lenovo has long held the largest share in the TOP500. Petrobras also requires servers to be certified by Nvidia.

Petrobras said that Lenovo's proposal put forward a source configuration that ensures compliance with redundancy requirements. "The technology solution proposed by Lenovo not only meets all the bidding requirements, but also exceeds these requirements in many ways."

This is Lenovo's first Petrobras HPC contract win. Petrobras currently has about 10 sets of HPCs, and is a leader in procurement in Brazil. Petrobras' products were previously manufactured by companies such as Dell, HPE and Atos, and Lenovo has broken through this situation.

Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) is the department responsible for servers and storage, and was established after the acquisition of IBM's x86 server business, a deal that was completed over 10 years ago for more than $2.3 billion.

Recently, Lenovo ISG has established the goal of becoming the leader in the Latin American market. Currently, Lenovo ranks third in overall ICT infrastructure ranking in the region, behind Dell and HPE, but is already ranked second or first in some markets.

João Bortone, regional head of Lenovo ISG, said: "The reason why we were able to win a place is first because of the quality of our services and products, and second because we have made a lot of investments in Latin America." Bortone has previously served as head of Dell Technology's infrastructure division. In 2022, he became head of Lenovo's regional infrastructure division.