BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Friday requested the Centre to set up a C-DAC regional centre in the Capital City to accelerate research in high performance computing and data analytics for application in industries and governance in Odisha.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik raised the issue in a letter to Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad. Stating that establishment of a C-DAC here will enable faculty, PhD scholars and students to solve problems of State and national importance, Naveen said Odisha being a coastal State and prone to cyclone, application of high performance computing can particularly help in weather forecasting and disaster management.
At present, Kolkata has the only regional centre of C-DAC in the Eastern part of the country. Stating that Odisha has been making steady progress in the field of electronics, information and communication technology, the Chief Minister said the State Government is developing a dedicated electronic park near the Capital, Bhubaneswar with state-of-the-art infrastructure and research facilities to house electronic manufacturing units. “The State has also got two IT SEZs with all major IT companies operating from these SEZs,” he said.
The Chief Minister said in recent years many prominent National-level educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), Institute of Physics, Institute of Mathematics, Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT) and National Institutes of Technology (NIT) have started functioning in Odisha and many other reputed institutions like Birla Institute of Technology (BITS) have evinced interest to open their branches.
One C-DAC centre of excellence has already been set up in VSS University of Technology, Burla, Naveen said and added that Odisha Government is actively considering establishment of high performance computing and deep learning C-DAC centres in other state government-run technical universities and engineering colleges.