Made in India supercomputers likely by the end of the year, says National Supercomputing Mission

• India hopes to have the infrastructure required to manufacture the components needed to build a supercomputer within the country set up by December 2020.
• Once completed, around 75 institutions and thousands of researchers will have access to the computers using the NKN to solve problems in education, industry, commerce, and other sectors.
• As a part of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) 14 institutes have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up the manufacturing infrastructure.
• Under the MoU, some supercomputers have already been installed. Others will be in place by the end of the year.
  

As a part of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), India is planning to set up a slew of supercomputers across the country to form the National Knowledge Network (NKN).

Once completed, around 75 institutions and thousands of researchers will have access to the computers using the NKN to solve problems in education, industry, commerce, space, weather forecasting, oil exploration campaigns, and in the search of medicines.


India’s current supercomputers are assembled in India but use components imported from other parts of the world. However, the Indian government is hoping to change that and have the capability to produce the country’s first indigenous supercomputer by the end of year.

14 institutes across the country — including IITs, NITs, the National Lab and IISER — have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to manufacture the needed components within India by setting up their own infrastructure.

This includes designing and developing domestic server boards, interconnect processors, system software libraries, and storage. For instance, India already has its indigenously developed server Rudra. It’s the first server system developed in India with a full software stack.

Systems designed and manufactured in India will likely be installed at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, IIT Chennai and Inter University Accelerator Center (IUAC) in Delhi and CDAC Pune.

Three ‘assembled-in India' supercomputers already in place
Under the MoU, some supercomputers have already been installed. Others will be in place by December 2020.

The first supercomputer Param Shivaay was set up at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Varanasi last year.

Another two supercomputers have also been set up at IIT Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune.

The second and third phases
The second phase of the mission is set to be completed by April 2021. It will involve increasing the speed of the supercomputer network in the country to 16 petaflops. During this time eight more institutions will also be equipped with super computing capabilities.

In the third phase, the speed of the supercomputer network will be more than doubled to 45 petaflops. Once completed, around 75 institutions and thousands of researchers will have access to the computers using the NKN.

The endeavour to build truly ‘Made-in-India’ supercomputers puts India alongside the likes of IBM, Google and HP in the race to expand computing power and solve more complex problems.

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