CHENNAI: In a boost to India’s high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities, IIT Madras has launched the indigenously developed supercomputing facility Param Shakti. The system has been set up under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), jointly steered by MeitY and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The facility was launched by MeitY secretary S Krishnan on January 3.
Param Shakti is powered by the Param Rudra supercomputing cluster, entirely designed, developed and manufactured in India by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The system uses Rudra series servers and runs on open-source platforms, including AlmaLinux, along with C-DAC’s indigenously developed system software stack, reinforcing India’s push for technological self-reliance in critical computing infrastructure, said a statement issued by IIT Madras.
With a peak performance of 3.1 petaflops, the facility is capable of executing over 3.1 quadrillion calculations per second, placing it among the most powerful supercomputing installations in the country. Such computational capacity is crucial for handling large-scale simulations and data-intensive workloads that would otherwise require years of experimental effort, it stated.
“The department deliberately avoids promoting a single technology or graphics processing unit (GPU) type, instead enabling access to multiple GPU architectures, allowing our innovators, scientists, and researchers to gain broad exposure and develop the capability to master diverse platforms,” Krishnan said.