India begins work on $2 Billion Exascale Supercomputer for Space & Meteorological Applications

[Chanakya's_Chant]

India working on building fastest supercomputer

India-made super computer PARAM Yuva II had been ranked 44th in the prestigious Green500 List for Super Computers.​

Top science centres in the country like ISRO, IISc and select IITs have started work on a mission to build and run the fastest supercomputer that will work at exaflops per second, faster than the current Petaflops performance worldwide.

There is no exaflop supercomputer in the world yet and the first one is expected to emerge around 2019-2020, which is exactly when India has planned to launch its own.

India’s proposed new supercomputer is set to work at 132 exaflops per second as against an 1 exaflops per second machine being built by Cray Incorporated, the iconic American computer company which has projected that its machine would be ready by 2020.

The IISc-Isro project has the backing of the Centre which has set aside Rs 11,000 crore for its development (roughly $2 bn), apart from support to the other major initiative of having 100-150 supercomputers at the local, district and national levels under a national programme.

Prof N Balakrishnan, Professor at the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC) and Associate Director, IISc, told Deccan Herald: “The world does not have an exaflop supercomputer yet. The first one is to come up around 2019. Research work on exaflops is underway at IISC, Isro and a few IITs and C-DAC for India’s own proposed exaflop supercomputer. It is a collective project and scientists from around the country are involved in it.”

But what India’s science institutions are working on is no easy task, with the senior professor expressing caution about the project. “Taking up research on exaflops itself is a big step. An exaflop machine is not only hard to build, but it is also very difficult to just run it. The system requires a level of energy way above normal levels. We need to have energy-efficient systems in place to build and run this machine. Higher the energy consumed, higher the costs. Good system and energy management will be crucial in cutting down costs.” India’s supercomputer program was initiated in the late 1980’s when the US government launched sanctions against India that was seeking to establish supercomputing base in the country. The US thinking was that India would use the same for military objectives, not just civilian, and so, is best denied.

But India managed to come up with PARAM 8000 supercomputer, considered India’s first. Built in 1990 by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, it was replicated and installed at ICAD Moscow in 1991 with Russian collaboration. The fastest supercomputer in India now is the one at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, the second fastest one at Pune’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and the third fastest at Bangalore’s CSIR Fourth Paradigm Institute.

Source:- India working on building fastest supercomputer

>> In computing, flops is an acronym to measure computing performance. An average personal computer can go up to 7.5 gigaflops.

>> A performance of 132.8 exaflops means 132 quintillion floating operations per second. A quintillion has 18 zeros (a million has six).

>> India, earlier in 2007 had the world's fourth fastest indigenously-developed supercomputer with a performance of 172.5 teraflops (172 trillion flops), which has been enhanced to 220 teraflops.

>> As of June 2014, India has 9 systems on the Top500 list ranking 52, 101, 119, 123, 132, 136, 281, 441 and 483.

 

[karan21]

This is brilliant. I would love to see India taking the top spot. But I don't know why they are shooting directly for 2019. Build some Petaflop systems first by 2015-16 so atleast we can be in top 10.

 

[Kinetic]

Supercomputers are essential for aeronautics, electronic and cyber defence/attack and simulation. The new area is Big Data which can change the face of social science.

What about software development for the same? It is as important as developing the hardware.

If we are able to get the supercomputer by 2020 than it will help us in design of aircrafts, missiles simulation, nuclear simulation, genetics, metallurgy etc.

 

[he-man]

We should have 1 supercomputer in each of the iit's and then in next phase all the nit's

 

[narcon]

132 exaflops will be an overkill on global level!!

Cray was the entity that first denied India its Supercomputer. And what an irony, that India is going 132 times faster than it...Lol

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

This is brilliant. I would love to see India taking the top spot. But I don't know why they are shooting directly for 2019. Build some Petaflop systems first by 2015-16 so atleast we can be in top 10.

October 6, 2014
India to Launch $730M National Supercomputing Mission
Tiffany Trader

India’s plans to be a world-class computing power are taking shape as the nation’s government lays out its strategy to build a vast supercomputing grid, comprised of more than 70 high-performance computing facilities. The project is expected to take seven years and comes with a price tag of $730 million (Rs. 4,500-crore). It calls for at least three petascale machines about 40-times faster than the country’s current record-holder, which puts the estimated output in the 25-30 petaflops range.

As reported in Hindustan Times, India’s finance ministry panel authorized the National Supercomputing Mission, which is being jointly managed by the department of science and technology and the department of electronics and information technology. However, the project still has to clear the Indian cabinet before becoming official policy.

Professor Rajat Moona, director general of the prestigious Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), characterized the mission as “the first step in our desire to have a supercomputer machine in the top 20 list.” He also spoke of the transformative impact it would have on research quality and quantity by facilitating the training of Indian scientists and the development of “home-grown applications” in medicine, agriculture and technology.

The seven-year mission will take place in two phases: the first three years will see the construction of 73 networked systems at research and education sites across the country. In the remaining four years, the focus will be on application development to make the most of this investment.

Key to the mission is raising India’s ranking as a supercomputing power. As such, the first machines built will be petascale supercomputers, the nation’s first, “boost[ing] high-performance computing for India several fold,” according to K VijayRaghavan, secretary, science and technology department.

This is not India’s first attempt at supercomputing glory. In 2007, the Eka supercomputer was the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world and the fastest in Asia. Presently, India has nine systems on the TOP500 list, two in the top 100.

India’s current top number-cruncher, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s iDataPlex, has a benchmarked performance of 719 teraflops, sufficient for a 52 ranking on the TOP500 list. The 388-teraflops (LINPACK) PARAM Yuva – II is the country’s second fastest. Unveiled by C-DAC in early 2013, the machine holds the 100th spot on the latest TOP500 list.

India would like to be competitive with the United States, the European Union, China and Japan when it comes to supercomputing prowess, but while those powers are jockeying to reach exascale, India is looking at fielding petascale machines in the same timeframe. However, there is a lot to be said for an approach that puts usability before rankings. The developing nation will surely find more value in a networked grid of high-performance computers than a monolithic stunt machine.

Source:- India to Launch $730M National Supercomputing Mission

 

[trident2010]

Good work India !!

 

[jamahir]

another nonsense "feel good" project... (1). supercomputers are actually useless, but useful only to mathematicians ( useless people ) and governments ( for self-congratulations ), (2). let me see infosys-iisc-cdac design a microprocessor and operating system.

 

[sathya]

OS & processor development was on cards..
Don't know the status now

Btw even I would have preferred this development first... Private companies should join this effort..

Anyways any development is better than nothing ..

 

[he-man]

132 exaflops will be an overkill on global level!!

Cray was the entity that first denied India its Supercomputer. And what an irony, that India is going 132 times faster than it...Lol

We will still use intel and amd processors
Not much of an achievement assembling it if u have the money to buy components

 

[Indo-guy]

another nonsense "feel good" project... (1). supercomputers are actually useless, but useful only to mathematicians ( useless people ) and governments ( for self-congratulations ), (2). let me see infosys-iisc-cdac design a microprocessor and operating system.

Your immaturity is evident from your post .
Hope you are gratified with this ' feel good' post .

stay in your cave . do not venture out and keep throwing stones from warmth of your cave . You rightfully belong there .

 

[fsayed]

india must now focus on hardware such as micro processor and nano tech
but good news super computers

 

[narcon]

We will still use intel and amd processors
Not much of an achievement assembling it if u have the money to buy components

Imagine if that were this easy!
Pakistan would go on record breaking frenzy in this field.

 

[he-man]

Imagine if that were this easy!
Pakistan would go on record breaking frenzy in this field.

They have no money to spend

 

[fsayed]

We will still use intel and amd processors
Not much of an achievement assembling it if u have the money to buy components

Prantij to house state's 1st semiconductor wafer unit - The Times of India
Prantij to house state's 1st semiconductor wafer unit

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat is set to get its first semiconductor wafer fabrication manufacturing facility by late 2017 in Prantij of Sabarkantha district.

To be set up by Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (HSMC), the facility will employ over 25,000 people including 4,000 direct employees.

Last year in September, the central government had approved setting up of two semiconductor wafer fabrication (FAB) manufacturing facilities in the country including one in Gujarat with an aim to provide a big boost to the electronics system design and manufacturing eco-system in the country.


HSMC along with ST Microelectronics (France/Italy) and Silterra (Malaysia) will set up two manufacturing units each with capacity of producing 20,000 wafers per month. Of the two, the first will come up by 2017.

"We got the go ahead in March this year and are in the process of finalizing the land and working on detailed project reports. We will be hiring 4,000 direct employees in the initial phase," said Vishal Verma, president, HSMC. The company is also in talks with top device manufacturers of the US for tie-ups.

The central government will get 11% equity in the project. The state government has cleared 1,000 acre of land for setting up the manufacturing facility in the proposed electronic park in Prantij. Siemens will be IT partner for the project and Fairwood Consultants will be the design and architect partner.

The facilities are expected to attract more than Rs 30,000 crore investments in the region of which more than Rs 6,000 crore will be invested by the central government.

The other unit is being set up by Jaiprakash Associates along with IBM (USA) and Tower Jazz (Israel) in Greater Noida. The outlay of the proposed project is about Rs 26,300 crore.

India currently imports $8 billion of semiconductors and is likely to import more than $20 billion of semiconductors by 2020. Government believes that the setting up of semiconductor manufacturing facility will not only stimulate flow of capital and technology and create employment opportunities, but will also reduce India's dependence on imports and help higher value addition in the electronic products manufactured in the country.

What is semiconductor wafer fabrication?
Semiconductor fabrication is the process used to create the integrated circuits that are present in every day electrical and electronic devices such as phones, computer hardware, set-top boxes and host of other such devices. It is a multiple-step sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer made of pure semiconducting material. Silicon is almost always used, but various compound semiconductors are used for specialized applications. The entire manufacturing process, from start to packaged chips ready for shipment, takes six to eight weeks and is performed in highly specialized facilities referred to as FAB.