World’s largest PC makers are in fray as the govt opens up to private sector for its Supercomputing Mission

India is bolstering its prowess of super computers and has now opened up to the private sector for its National Supercomputing Mission.

For the first time, India is ready to forge a partnership with world’s biggest personal computer makers for the network of super computers through which India's research and predictive capabilities would be strengthened.

In this regard, several companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Lenovo, Acer, etc are in the fray for the project.

"Building these super computers requires huge facilities which we don't have. At present we are in talks with a lot of companies and will soon go to the RFP (request for proposal) stage etc," Rajat Moona, director-general of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, told ET.

India’s National Supercomputing Mission, which is worth Rs 4500 crore, was given a nod by the Cabinet in March.

Under this, India will add 70 super computers to the existing 10 in a national grid.

Presently, India stands at 74th spot in global supercomputing pecking order which is led by China. The world's fastest supercomputer is China's Tianhe-2.

Sanjay Virnave, country manager of enterprise, server and storage at Acer, told ET that his company, which works with the Taiwan government on super-computing has created a separate team to work on this in India. "The fact that they are open to roping in private firms is a very a positive shift in mindset," Virnave told ET.

"We have been in touch with the government, and it is great that they are building it in partnership with the private sector. The government doesn't need to invest in technology from ground zero when they have multinationals having global R&D facilities around it," Lenovo India MD Rahul Agarwal told ET.

(Image: Indiatimes)