Day 53 – Q 4.What has been India’s performance and achievements in the field of super computing? Analyse.

4. What has been India’s performance and achievements in the field of super computing? Analyse. 

सुपर कंप्यूटिंग के क्षेत्र में भारत का प्रदर्शन और उपलब्धियां क्या रही हैं? विश्लेषण करें।

Introduction:

A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). Since 2017, there are supercomputers which can perform over a hundred quadrillion FLOPS. 

Body

India’s performance and achievements in the field of supercomputing 

• India’s supercomputer program was started in late 1980s because Cray supercomputers could not be imported into India due to an arms embargo imposed on India, as it was a dual-use technology and could be used for developing nuclear weapons.
• This led to setting up the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in March 1988 with the clear mandate to develop an indigenous supercomputer to meet high-speed computational needs.
• PARAM 8000, considered to be India’s first supercomputer was indigenously built in 1991 by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).
• Presently, Pratyush, a Cray XC40 system – an array of computers that can deliver a peak power of 6.8 petaflops, installed at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, is the fastest supercomputer in India. Launched in January 2018, it is the fourth fastest High Performance Computer (HPC) dedicated to climate modelling in the world.
• The government launched National Supercomputing Mission to connect national academic and R&D institutions with a grid of over 70 high-performance computing facilities.
• Recently NSM’s first indigenously built supercomputer ‘Param Shivay’ WAS inaugurated at Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi.
• India’s three systems on TOP500 list ranking are:
  • Pratyush (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology) – 53rd rank 
  • Mihir ( National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) – 86th rank
  • INC1 – Lenovo C1040 (Software Company (M)) – 428th rank

India plans to indigenously develop 60 supercomputers over the next three years, Under National Supercomputing mission(NSM). India has lagged behind in the race of building supercomputers despite being a leader in the IT enabled services (ITES). Hence, National Supercomputing Mission is a step in the right direction.

Conclusion

Supercomputers are strategic in the most important sense, namely, the creation of an ecosystem that extends well beyond the boundaries of science and technology and has the capacity to transform the country. However appropriate infrastructure – both digital as well as physical is very much needed. Hence for India to become a knowledge-driven, multi-trillion-dollar economy, which is able to support cutting-edge science, investment in supercomputing is a necessity.