India may add another achievement in terms of ‘Self-reliant India’ later this year. India is all set to induct first indigenous Supercomputer. Currently, supercomputers are only being assembled in the country. Parts of these supercomputers are imported from other countries. The government wants to change this system and make the country’s first ‘Made in India’ supercomputer by the end of this year.
MoU with 14 Institutes for Supply of Parts
The Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 14 institutions to supply parts for the first ‘Made in India’ supercomputer. This includes IITs, NITs, National Lab and IISER. These institutes will build their infrastructure and make supercomputer parts. Under the MoU, these institutions will design and develop domestic server boards, supply interconnect processors, system software libraries and storage.
Government ambitious plan for National Knowledge Network
Under the National Super Computing Mission (NSM), the government wants to lay a network of supercomputers in the country. This will help in building the National Knowledge Network (NKN). After the formation of this network, around 75 institutes and thousands of researchers will get interconnected with each other. After joining NKN, the researchers will be helped in solving problems related to education, industry, commerce, space, weather forecasting, oil exploration campaigns and drug discovery.
Supercomputers developed and manufactured in the country can be installed at IIT Mumbai, IIT Chennai, Inter-University Accelerator Center Delhi and CDAC Pune.
Three supercomputers already installed under NKN
Three supercomputers have been installed in the country under the National Knowledge Network. Other supercomputers will be installed from December 2020. All three supercomputers are assembled in India. The first supercomputer in the country was installed last year at IIT Varanasi. After this, two other supercomputers were installed at IIT Kharagpur and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune.
The second phase of NSM
The second phase of NSM(National Supercomputing Mission) will be completed in April 2021. This will increase the speed of the supercomputer network in the country to 16 petaflops. In this period 8 more institutions will be added with supercomputing capability. The speed of the supercomputer network will increase to 45 petaflops in the third phase. On completion of NSM, around 75 institutes and thousands of researchers will have access to supercomputers through NKN.