It has been learned that the first of the 70 supercomputers that are being manufactured to assist in research will be ready by August 2017. This was confirmed by a government official to LiveMint. The project was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs with the launch of National Supercomputing Mission in March last year at an estimated cost of Rs.4,500 crore over a period of seven years.
India wants to be seen as one of the best developers of supercomputers. Today 11 machines of India are in the list of world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers. The first of the new lot of supercomputers is getting developed in Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Here it should be noted that C-DAC was also responsible for developing India’s first supercomputer ‘Param.’
The National Supercomputing Mission envisages to install a supercomuting grid of more than 70 high perfoermance computing facilites. These supercomputers will then be networked over the National Knowledge Network, a government programme, that will look to connect academic institutions and reseach and development (R&D) labs over a high-speed network.
The mission is being implemented jointly by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).
By Atanu Kumar Das
