Param Ananta, Supercomputer was Installed at IIT Gandhinagar

A state-of-the-art Supercomputer PARAM ANANTA was installed at IIT Gandhinagar under Phase-2 of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). It was installed with an objective to pursue Research and Development (R&D) activities in multidisciplinary domains of science and technology. 

The supercomputer was dedicated to the nation. The high-power supercomputer can process 838 lakh crore calculations per second.

To establish the supercomputer with the capacity of 838 TeraFlops, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between IIT Gandhinagar and the Centre for Development in Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in October 2020.

The supercomputer is equipped with a mix of CPU nodes, GPU nodes, High Memory nodes, High throughput storage and high-performance Infiniband interconnect to cater to the computing needs of various scientific and engineering applications.

The installed supercomputer is based on ‘Direct Contact Liquid Cooling technology’ to obtain high-power usage effectiveness and thereby reduce the operational cost. 

The supercomputer will be used in various fields like Weather and Climate, Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Molecular Dynamics, Material Sciences, Computational Fluid Dynamics etc. have been installed on the system for the benefit of researchers. 

With an objective to provide a major boost to the research and development initiatives in Indian academia and industries, 15 supercomputers have been installed across the nation under the NSM.

A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance compared to a general-purpose computer. Recently, a supercomputer PARAM PORUL was installed in NIT-Trichirapalli.

   Important points for the exam:

• PARAM ANANTA, a state-of-the-art Supercomputer was installed at IIT Gandhinagar under Phase-2 of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). 
• It was installed with an objective to pursue Research and Development (R&D) activities in multidisciplinary domains of science and technology. 
• The high-power supercomputer can process 838 lakh crore calculations per second.
• In October 2020, both the IIT Gandhinagar and the Centre for Development in Advanced Computing (C-DAC) signed a MoU to install a supercomputer with the capacity of 838 TeraFlops.
• The installed supercomputer is based on ‘Direct Contact Liquid Cooling technology’ to obtain high-power usage effectiveness and thereby reduce the operational cost. 

   Facts to know:

• World’s powerful supercomputer: Frontier - developed by the USA.
• Fastest supercomputer in India: PARAM Siddhi-AI.
• Recently, a supercomputer PARAM PORUL was installed in NIT-Trichirapalli.
• National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) was launched in 2015 by the Union government.