Supercomputers of India
Super Computer is a class of extremely powerful computer with high processing capabilities. Supercomputer employs parallel processing methodology. In parallel processing, a complex task is divided into small tasks and these tasks are performed in a parallel fashion. 

The two main requisites of a supercomputer are high speed and huge amounts of memory capabilities (ie, about 25k times faster than a normal computer). 

The processing speed of a supercomputer is calculated in FLOPS (Floating-point Operations Per Second). Many of the supercomputers deployed today are Linux based. 

Super Computers are ranked baased on their performance. It is measured by 2 values 

  1. Rmax – maximum performance achieved by a computer.
  2. Rpeak – theoretical maximum performance of a computer.

In the TOP500 list of Super Computers, India stands 89th in the world while Japan's Supercomputer Fugaku tops the list with Rmax - 442,010.0 TFlop/s and Rpeak - 537,212.0 TFlop/s. 

Nowadays USA's SUMMIT (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) the second-fastest computer is deployed in the Corona drug research and produced a list of 77 drugs that could possibly prevent the disease.

Apart from PARAM Siddhi-AI, there are two other supercomputers from India that are included in the TOP500 list. They are Pratyush [CRAY XC40] (Global Rank: 107) and Mihir [CRAY XC40]  (Global Rank: 187).

According to the twenty-fourth Top Supercomputers-India list released by the C-DAC, the combined supercomputing power of the nation is now 18.55 Peta Flops. 

Basic Facts

  • First Supercomputer – CDC 6600 (1964).
    • Designed by – Seymour Cray.
  • First Super Computer in India – PARAM 8000 (1990).
    • Designed by – Vijay Bhatkar.
  • First Supercomputer in India to enter the TOP500  list – PARAM Padma (2003).
  • First Supercomputer developed by ISRO – SAGA-220 (2011).
  • Fastest Supercomputer in the World – Fugaku (Japan).
  • Fastest Supercomputer in India – PARAM Siddhi-AI (Global Rank: 89; Rmax - 4,619.0 TFlop/s & Rpeak - 5,267.1 TFlop/s).
  • First Multi Petaflop Supercomputer – Pratyush (a Cray XC40 system, 2019).
  • First Biological Supercomputer was developed by – Canada (2016).

History

The idea of indigenously built supercomputers gained momentum when the US under George HW Bush administration stopped the export of a Cray supercomputer, Cray X-MP because of continuing technology bans. They feared that India might use it for military purposes rather than for weather forecasting.

After this, the Indian Government under then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided to set up Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in March 1988 (Pune) to develop technologically advanced supercomputers. 
 
C-DAC was the scientific society of  the Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

This led to the development of the first indigenously built Super Computer in India, PARAM 8000 in 1990 PARAM 8000 at 5 Gflops was considered as the second-fastest supercomputer in the world at that time. The latest machine in the PARAM series are the PARAM SHIVAY and the PARAM Brahma.

National Supercomputer Mission (NSM)

The government launched Rs. 4,500-crore National Supercomputing Mission under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It is a joint venture  implemented along with the Department of Science and Technology (DST)  under the guidance of C-DAC and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
  • NSM’s first supercomputer – PARAM Shivay IIT-BHU, Varanasi, 837 TeraFlops.
Its aim was set to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.

List of Major Supercomputers in India

Some of the Supercomputers built in India are as follows:

SuperComputerYearInstitute
Param Shivay2019IIT-BHU
Pratyush2017IIT(Pune)
Param Kanchenjunga2016CDAC AND NIT Sikkim
Param Ishan2016CDAC AND IIT Guhawati
Aadithya2013Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology
Param Yuva II2013CDAC Pune
SAGA-2202011ISRO
Anupam Adhya2010BARC

Applications of a Supercomputer

People may not be aware of the fact that we are actually depending upon the supercomputer in our daily lives when doing a Google Search. Supercomputers have a wide variety of applications in different fields. Some of them are:
  1. Weather and climate modeling
  2. Scientific R & D
  3. Missile Deployment
  4. Space Science
  5. Pharmaceutical Science
  6. Big Data Mining.
  7. Molecular Dynamics

What the Future holds for Super Computing?

There is a race to break the Exaflop barrier all over the world. Many of the Exaflops supercomputers are getting ready to be unveiled in 2021. Google's Supercomputer Sycamore is said to have achieved quantum supremacy. Future fields of application include:
  • Quantum Computing
  • DNA Computing
  • Optic Computing

📝SideNotes:

  • Father of Indian Supercomputers – Vijay P. Bhatkar.
  • PARAM means – Supreme / First in Sanskrit.
  • Minister of Communications and Information Technology – Ashwini Vaishnaw.
    • Minister Of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) – Ashwini Vaishnaw.
  • Forerunner of CDAC - Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Technology (C-DACT).
  • Supercomputer named after Kalpana Chalwa, the  first woman of Indian origin to go to space – KC (USA).

Thanks for reading!!!