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Content

• Introduction
• Supercomputers and India
• Fastest Supercomputers in India
• National Super Computing Mission

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Introduction

A supercomputer is a computer with a high-level computational capacity compared to a general-purpose computer or Supercomputer is a computer with great speed and memory. They are usually thousands of time faster than ordinary personal computers made at that time.

As per TOP500 released in Nov 2022 USA’s Frontier is the most powerful supercomputer of the world reaching 1102 petaflops (1.102 exaflops).

• Fugaku (of Japan) is ranked 2^nd (442 – 537 petaflops)
• LUMI (of European Union, Finland) is ranked 3^rd (309.10 – 428.70 petaflops)
• Leonardo (of European Union, Italy) is ranked 4^th (174 – 255 petaflops)
• Summit (of USA) is ranked 5^th (148 – 200 petaflops)

Uses: Super computers are generally used for scientific and engineering applications that must handle very large databases or do a great amount of computation (or both). Some of the key areas where supercomputers contribute are:

• Weather forecasting
• Climate research
• Code-breaking
• Genetic analysis
• Oil and gas exploration – Seismic processing in the oil industry
• Molecular modelling
• Other jobs that need many calculations including engineering, product design, complex supply chain optimization (actually any kind of optimization), Bitcoin mining

A) Supercomputers and India

In terms of supercomputing power India is way behind the world leaders. In the 56^th List of Supercomputer systems released by TOP500 Japan, USA, Germany, Italy, and France dominated the first 100 systems. Only three Chinese supercomputers were in the top 100 list. But in top 500, China has 200+ systems followed by USA (100+) and Japan (30+).

B) Fastest Supercomputers in India

Our fastest super computer PARAM SIDDHI – AI is ranked 63 in the world. It is India’s fastest and largest supercomputer. It has a performance of 6 petaflops sustained and 210 AI petaflops. It was developed under the National Supercomputing Mission.

Pratyush (IITM) and Mihir (National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), NOIDA) are other very fast super computers India has (but they are not ranked in top 100 in the world).

Challenges to supercomputing in India

• Limited Funding – even after launching NSM, only 10% of the total budget has been released so far.
• Infrastructure – Hardware: India doesn’t have a strong base in hardware manufacturing, impacting our Supercomputing capabilities
• Human Resource: Talented computing workforce prefers working for MNCs like Google and Microsoft impacting India’s ability to get high quality workforce for the sector

C)  National Super Computing Mission

• A visionary program, launched in 2015, to enable India to leapfrog to the league of world class computing power nations.
• Joint Implementation of mission by DST, Ministry Of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has been started in full-fledged manner.
• Super Computing Grid: The mission envisages empowering our national academic and R&D institutions spread over the country by installing a vast supercomputing grid comprising of more than 70 high performance computing facilities.
• Human Resource: The mission also includes development of highly professional High-Performance Computing (HPC) aware human resource for meeting challenges of manpower scarcity in the sector.
• Updates SO far: As of Feb 2022, NSM has established 10 Supercomputer systems across India with a cumulative computing power of 17 petaflops.

Way Forward

Supercomputers are now using exa-scale systems which may reach its speed barrier soon. The scientists are already working on new mechanisms like quantum computing, optical computing etc. India should ensure more research in this field to ensure that future supercomputing doesn’t remain a concern for it and it is able to walk along the advanced economies of the world in terms of computing power.

Example Question:

What is a Supercomputer? Discuss the key targets of India’s National Super Computing Mission [150 worlds, 10 marks]