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PARAM Rudra Supercomputer

Context

Recently, the Prime Minister of India virtually launched three Param Rudra Super Computing Systems and a High Performance Computing (HPC) system for weather and climate research.

About PARAM Rudra Supercomputer:

• Purpose: PARAM Rudra is built to solve complex computational challenges across various scientific and engineering fields.
• Development: Three PARAM Rudra supercomputers have been developed indigenously under the National Supercomputing Mission at a cost of Rs 130 crores.
• Deployment: These supercomputers have been set up at three major locations:
  • Pune: At the Giant Metre Radio Telescope (GMRT), to study Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and other astronomical phenomena.
  • Delhi: At the Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), facilitating research in material science and atomic physics.
  • Kolkata: At the S N Bose Centre, driving advanced research in areas like physics, cosmology, and earth sciences.

What is a High-Performance Computing (HPC) System?

• Purpose: The HPC system is specially designed for weather and climate research.
• Location:It operates from two key centers:
  • The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune.
  • The National Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) in Noida.
• Systems: The HPC systems are named ‘Arka’ and ‘Arunika,’ reflecting their association with the Sun.
• Significance: These advanced systems will greatly enhance the accuracy and lead time of weather predictions, particularly for tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, heatwaves, droughts, and other critical weather events.

What is National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)?

• The mission was set up to provide the country with supercomputing infrastructure to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups by creating the capability design, manufacturing, of supercomputers indigenously in India.
• The mission will nationally coordinate collaborative programme involving developers and users of supercomputing systems as well as academic and research institutions.
• It looks to facilitate effective governance and monitoring mechanisms to build culture of supercomputing for solving complex R&D problems and designing solutions addressing various country specific requirements for scientific, strategic and societal applications.
• 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.
• These supercomputers will also be networked on the National Supercomputing grid over the National Knowledge Network (NKN).
  • The NKN is a central government initiative which connects academic institutions and R&D labs over a high-speed network.
• Under NSM, the long-term plan is to build a strong base of 20,000 skilled persons.
• The mission will be implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), through the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.