30 petaflops device: Bengaluru to host India’s most powerful supercomputer; climate research set for major push

BENGALURU: Amid brickbats over infrastructure, here's something that gives Bengaluru its bragging rights: The premier tech city will soon host India's most powerful supercomputer with a speed of 30 petaflops, which will help scientists and researchers work faster in important areas like AI, quantum computing, and climate research.Industry experts said a strong tech ecosystem along with engineering talent has made Bengaluru a key hub for semiconductor and chip design, with nearly 20% of the world's chip designers based in the city. The new supercomputer facility will make Bengaluru the epicentre of India's next phase in high-performance computing and technological innovation. S Krishnan, secretary of the ministry of electronics and information technology, made the announcement at the launch of Super Computing India 2025 here on Tuesday. The new machine is being built by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under the National Supercomputing Mission.India already has 37 supercomputers working across the country, together providing a total speed of 39 petaflops. For easy understanding, a petaflop means a computer can perform one quadrillion calculations every second — quadrillion is the next milestone in the sequence of billion, trillion.Magesh Ethirajan, director general, C-DAC, said: "We decided to place it in Bengaluru because of the presence of better technology, workforce, and capacity availability.”Krishnan said that the 37 supercomputers are already helping over 10,000 researchers and have led to more than 1,250 research papers. "This demonstrates extensive domestic experience and expertise, largely enabled by C-DAC," he said.Magesh Ethirajan said the system is installed and undergoing testing at the C-DAC centre in the city and is mostly expected to be completed by December. Since the system capacity is huge and involves over 3,000 servers that must operate together via UNISOFT to achieve the expected performance. "Sustained power and other utilities must remain stable during testing," he added.This new supercomputer will help in carrying out critical applications such as weather forecasting, climate modelling, space exploration, satellite data analysis, drug discovery, genomics, nuclear simulations, and national security.In 2022, IISc-Bengaluru installed Param Pravega. With a supercomputing power of 3.3 petaflops, it is the largest supercomputer installed in an Indian academic institution.This new infrastructure is set to transform research and innovation in the city as it helps industry experts to advance drug discovery, tackle urban environmental challenges, develop flood warning and prediction systems, and optimise telecom networks.The event, ‘Powering the Future: HPC, AI, Quantum', will be held from December 9 to 13 at Manipal Institute of Technology, Yelahanka, organised by C-DAC. It aims to drive a global dialogue on high-performance computing, AI, and quantum technologies, aligning with India's national supercomputing mission, which seeks to build a strong network of supercomputers for research and innovation.