In 1991, the world was shocked by the launch of PARAM 8000, the first supercomputer in India; however, the government of India had introduced its supercomputing mission in 2015. A supercomputer is a mighty computer used for scientific and technical operations that demand exceptionally high computational capacity. They are also widely employed in the space science industry and are used to monitor climate. Supercomputers, unlike traditional computers, feature several CPUs to execute logic operations efficiently.
10 Top Supercomputers Developed in India
As India’s supercomputing mission has boosted the urge to produce fastest supercomputer in India, we have compiled a list of supercomputers developed in India.
1- PARAM Siddhi-AI
PARAM Siddhi is a high-performance fastest supercomputer in India powered by artificial intelligence. Under the National Supercomputing Mission, the Center for Development of Advanced Computing collaborated with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to construct it. In 2015, India’s fastest supercomputer, Siddhi-AI, was created and climbed to 63rd place on the world’s top 500 supercomputers list. PARAM Siddhi has a Rpeak of 5.67 petaflops and a Rmax of 4.6 petaflops.
2-Pratyush
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune built Pratyush, one of India’s fastest supercomputers, in 2018. In 2017, the government approved a budget of Rs. 400 crores for the construction of a new fastest supercomputer in India with a computational capability of ten petaflops, under the direction of Suryachandra Rao. This supercomputer is a Cray-XC40 liquid-cooled system with Intel Xeon Broadwell E5-2695 processors in each node. It boasts a massive 414 terabyte system memory with a peak performance of 6.8 petaflops. The primary purpose of this supercomputer is to predict monsoons and their severity precisely.
3-Mihir
Mihir is an Indian supercomputer that was constructed in 2018 by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. This supercomputer in India was also ranked 120th among the world’s top 500 supercomputers. The maximum capacity of Mihir is 2.5 petaflops. Pratyush and Mihir are utilised in weather forecasting activities together. When these two supercomputers are combined, they can achieve peak performance similar to PARAM Siddhi-AI.
4-SAHASRAT
Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has built this Cray XC40 supercomputer in India. It has enhanced the Supercomputer Education and Research Center’s hopped-up commuting system. This high-performance device includes an intel Haswell 2.5 GHz CPU set with twelve cores, 128 GB of RAM, 2.1 PB storage, NVIDIA G40 4K graphic accelerator, and 1376 nodes. It has grabbed 96th place among the world’s top 500 supercomputers. SAHASRAT is designed for molecular research and aeronautical engineering.
5. AADITYA
The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune has installed an IBM iDataplex supercomputer called AADITYA. The supercomputer has 2384 compute nodes, 149 TB RAM, an NVIDIA GF100GL graphics card, and 6 PB of storage space powered by Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs. AADITYA’s processor has 32 cores per node. IBM’s General Parallel File system manages the machine’s processing. AADITYA has previously been ranked 116th out of the top 500 supercomputers. IITM uses this supercomputer in India to forecast rainfall in smaller areas. It’s also where the institute’s meteorological research takes place.
6- Color Blossom
Hyderabad-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research has designed and developed this Cray-X30 supercomputer named Color Blossom. Powered by an Intel Xeon 5E-2680 processor, this supercomputer in India is operated on Linux operating system. The optimum speed of this super machine is 558.7 TFlops, and it includes 1.1 PB of storage and an NVIDIA Tesla K20x graphic card. It is utilized for the Indian Lattice Gauge Initiative, which is involved in quantum chromodynamics and physics research.
7- PARAM YUVA-II
In February 2013, the Center for Development of Advanced Computing, Intel, and Netweb Technologies collaborated to create PARAM YUVA-II, the next generation YUVA. In 2013, it was ranked 69th among the top 500 supercomputers in the world. YUVA-II is one of the fastest high-performance computing systems. With a performance of 1,760.20 megaflops, This supercomputer in India was ranked 44th in the 2013 Gree500 ranking of the most power-efficient supercomputers.
8- PADUM
It is a noble high-performance computer in India, ranked the world’s 166th fastest computer and 4th in India. Stationed in IIT Delhi, PADUM is a graphics-oriented supercomputer intended to execute graphic-intensive operations. This supercomputer in India is powered by NVIDIA’s Tesla Platform K40M processor combined with Intel Xeon G-6148 twenty core CPUs clocked at 2.4 GHz. Researchers at IIT Delhi collaborated with NVIDIA to produce this future-rich super machine. It is India’s only GPU-oriented supercomputer deployed to study and conduct research on data analytics and deep learning subjects.
9- VIRGO
VIRGO is a supercomputer based on the IBM iDataplex dx360 M4 and was created by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in 2015. Its primary goal is to acquire satellite data that will improve the region’s weather forecasting accuracy. Researchers can use the supercomputer to analyze data from prior cyclones and compare it to real-time weather data to improve predictions. This supercomputer in India is equipped with two 2.6 GHz Intel E5-2670 processors, 64 GB RAM per node, and a Mezzanine adapter for FDR10 infinite band communications. It contains 292 compute nodes in total, with a peak performance of 97 TFlops.
10- PARAM Shivay
The Center for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC) has developed the high-performance supercomputer in India for accurate weather forecasts and conducting computational biology research. This new fastest supercomputer in India was launched at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Varanasi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019. The supercomputer was created as part of the country’s National Supercomputing Mission. PARAM Shivay costs Rs.32 crores for research and development. The newly constructed Indian supercomputer has an 833 Tflops maximum capacity. Each node of Shivay is powered by two Intel Xeon Skylake 6148 processors with 20 cores and a clock speed of 2.4 GHz.
Bottom Line
Supercomputers require a lot of energy and generate a lot of heat. They must install suitable cooling technology to counteract the heat, increasing their cost and making them more challenging to maintain. Institutions and universities should be encouraged to develop more energy-efficient supercomputers. And the day we became successful in developing such an energy-efficient fastest supercomputer in India, it will be a historical day to cherish forever.
