PUNE: Floods, cyclones and tsunamis could be predicted two days in
advance with more accuracy as India plans to upgrade its supercomputing
capacity from teraflop to petaflop. For the record, one petaflop is
equivalent of 3,000 computer servers put together.The Union ministry of
information and communication technology (ICT) has planned to commission this project to the city-headquartered Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) once it gets the Prime Minister's nod. Kapil Sibal, the minister for information and communication technology, has forwarded the project plan to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) after discussions with senior officials of C-DAC recently.
C-DAC officials apprised Sibal of the capabilities of the Centre in supercomputing and what could be done in the next five years with petaflop capacity supercomputer. The project may cost about Rs 5,000 crore and if it gets the go ahead now, can be realised by 2017. Other countries currently having petaflop supercomputing facility includes Japan, the US and China.
Pradeep K Sinha, senior director, high performance computing group of C-DAC, said, "If we have a petaflop facility, the nation will benefit a great deal. Predicting weather could be very accurate and natural disasters like cyclones and tsunamis could be done as soon as two days in advance. If that is done, people who are in danger of getting hit by these natural disasters could be alarmed in time." Sinha said that modelling for a particular weather condition takes several years. However, a faster supercomputer would reduce this to a few weeks with more accuracy.
Among other areas, Sinha said the upscale supercomputer can tap natural resources in the sea more accurately. "In the past we have experienced that satellites have collapsed into the ocean instead of going into the orbit. These accidents are a result of improper simulation done due to low supercomputing speed. However, with petaflop facility, these instances can be avoided a great deal."
Supercomputers are also used to build large concrete structures such as flyovers, bridges and high-rise buildings. "Building these structures without a supercomputer may result in loss of money and time if the structure fails on-field. But, if data analysis and modelling of these structures are done with the help of supercomputers, this loss can be avoided," Sinha said.
A supercomputer also helps design customised drugs for individuals as per the characterisation of the person's medical fitness as well as space research, bioinformatics among others.
Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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