FASTER PARAM TO TAKE ON US SUPERCOMPUTER
Michael Gonsalves

mydigitalfc.com
Jul 09 2009 21:47 hrs IST

Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)
is developing the advanced high-speed Param super-computer, to be
unveiled by 2012, according to a top official.

"Over 150 top scientists are working on this project. This would be a
major achievement for India," Rajan T Joseph, director general, C-DAC,
told Financial Chronicle, on the sidelines of a conference. The new
supercomputer will have one pita flop (equivalent to 1,000 tera flops)
speed for various computing performances. Only the US has developed
such an advanced pita flop super-speed computer before.

"We will compete with the Americans in this supercomputing technol-ogy
and offer it at a cheaper rate to the world market," said scientist SP
Dixit, director of C-DAC and principal investigator of high-performance
compu-ting centre.

In 1991, C-DAC, had for the first time unveiled Param 8000
superco-mputer which had a speed of one giga flop (1,000 giga flop
is equivalent to one tera flop). While a super computer with one
giga flop performs one billion mathematical operations per second,
one pita flop super computer performs 1,000 trillion mathematical
operations per second.

Prime minister Manmo-han Singh will unveil C-DAC’s latest Param
Yuva supercomputer, with a speed of 54 tera flops, soon, according
to officials. "After 21 years of supercom-puting research (C-DAC
est.1988), and producing a series of supercomputers, the senior
scientist team built the Param Yuva supercomputer," Dixit said. It
will carry a price tag of Rs 25 crore, while the same model made in
the US is priced at Rs 50 crore, he added.

Dixit said the yet-to-be-named super speed supercomputer would cost
around Rs 500 crore. "But we are not here to make money and, therefore,
we may price it around Rs 150 crore since C-DAC’s mission is to help
in capacity building of developing countries," Dixit said.

The team is working on how to use less power, less space and make
it affordable for the world market. At present, Param Yuva super
computer uses 1 MW of power. "Logically, the high-end Param super
speed computer we are building will consume 20 MW of power. But we
are working on reducing the power consumption," said Dixit.

"Top end supercomp-uters cater to various applications in
computa-tional fluid, dynamics, weather forecasting, bio-informatics,
finite element analysis, ocean seismic modelling, material mode-lling,
national database of various kinds, e-govern-ance, telemedicine,
netw-ork applications and a host of high speed activities," said
Joseph.

C-DAC has also sold Param supercomputing clusters to Tanzania, Russia,
Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ghana, Myan-mar, Nepal, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. "We have sold these Param supercomputers
with a price tag of Rs 3.74 crore to Rs 8 crore," Joseph said.