India to Develop Fastest Supercomputer by 2017

It seems after the affordable tablets, now IT Ministry has its focus on supercomputers. India is all set to develop the fastest supercomputer by 2017. The announcement came from Union Minister of India for Telecom and IT, Kapil Sibal. India’s home grown super computer is now ranked 58^th in the world.

Reports suggest that the new supercomputer could outpace the existing super computer Sequoia developed by IBM. The Sequoia is currently being employed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under the Department of Energy for performing simulations of nuclear weapons testing. However, information regarding the purpose for which the supercomputer from India will be used is still not disclosed. 

The existing PARAM supercomputer in India is being used in CSIR Center for Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation. The CSIR Center is located in Bengaluru, India. Reports suggest that IT Ministry has proposed 4,700 crore investment for the coming five years in research and development of ‘petaflop and exaflop range of supercomputers’. The Minister has also asked the permission for fund to be allocated to ‘Department of Electronics and Information Technology ‘for managing and supervising the supercomputing development in the country. 

C-DAC developed first supercomputers the PARAM series in India and now Param Yuva having 54-teraflop computing power is used by researchers across the country. 

As of now, C-DAC also known to be ‘Centre for Development of Advanced Computing’ has been employed to oversee the supercomputer development by 2017. It is still not clear whether any other supercomputer will be developed in the world that will surpass the existing Sequoia from IBM. But if no other entrants come in to play, then India is all set for another milestone in the world of computing.