National Super Computing Mission(NSM)

What is the News? India is fast emerging as a leader in high-power computing with the launch of the National Super Computing Mission(NSM).

About National Super Computing Mission(NSM):

• Firstly, the government launched the National Super Computing Mission in 2015.
• Secondly, the aim is to connect research and academic institutions to a Supercomputing grid all over the country. The grid consists of more than 70 high-performance computing facilities, It will increase the research capacities and capabilities in the country.
• Thirdly, these supercomputers will also be networked on the National Supercomputing grid over the National Knowledge Network (NKN). The NKN is another program of the government. NKN connects academic institutions and R&D labs over a high-speed network.
• Implementing Agency: Department of Science and Technology and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) through the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

Phases under the mission:

Phase 1: Under this phase, 30% of the value addition of Supercomputers is done in India.

• Param Shivay was the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, installed in IIT(BHU).
• Param Shakti and Param Brahma supercomputer installed at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune respectively.
• Thereafter, supercomputing facilities were set up in two more institutions and one more is being set up with a computing speed to 6.6 Petaflops (PF).

Phase II: Under this phase, 40% of the value addition of Supercomputers is done in India.

• 8 institutions are being equipped with supercomputing facilities by April 2021 with a total of 10 PF compute capacity.
• MoUs have also been signed with a total of 14 premier institutions of India for establishing Supercomputing Infrastructure with Assembly and Manufacturing in India.
• This phase will complete by September 2021. After completion, it will take the country’s computing power to 16 Petaflops(PF).

Phase III:

• This phase will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops. This will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20PF as a national facility.

Indigenous Development: India has developed an Indigenous server named Rudra which can meet the High-Performance Computing (HPC) requirements of all governments and PSUs.

About National Knowledge Network(NKN):

• National Knowledge Network(NKN) was established in 2010. Its objective is to interconnect all institutions of higher learning and research with a high-speed data communication network. It will be helpful to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative research.
• Implementation: National Informatics Centre (NIC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is the implementing agency.

Source: PIB