The Hindu : Karnataka News : Supercomputer arrives at IISc

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Friday, Sep 28, 2007
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Karnataka

Supercomputer arrives at IISc

Divya Gandhi

Climate change models will be one of the main applications

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

The Super Computer Education and Research Centre at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: As climate change becomes a reality that few can refute and scientists around the world venture to understand the phenomenon, those at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will not be left behind. To keep pace with global research on climate change and also to meet its own varied and growing research needs, IISc will soon be acquiring a series of supercomputers.

“In about a month Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC) will have a machine that will have around 24 teraflops of computing power. (One teraflop is the ability of a computer to process one trillion operations or calculations per second). The new machine will enhance our existing high performance computing capacity by 10 times, and take care of our current needs to some extent,” Associate Director of IISc and Professor at SERC, N. Balakrishnan, told The Hindu.

The machine has arrived in Bangalore and will soon be ready for use, he said.

This acquisition is long overdue. It has been nearly three years since the heavily used supercomputers at SERC received a capacity boost, he added.

The institute’s Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS) will be one of the major users of the supercomputer. “CAOS intends to create models that will allow us to see how the climate will evolve in the next 100 years under the influence of human activity,” said J. Srinivas, chairman of IISc’s Mechanical Science Division, of which CAOS is a part.

“Faster computers will help us to understand more complex interactions in the climate system. We can, for example, look at the interaction between vegetation, the atmosphere, and the ocean — and in the future, the impact of aerosols on climate,” he said.

Prof. Srinivas added, “It is important for India that we make our own predictions of future climatic conditions, because extreme events, such as heavy rainfall, heat waves, and droughts, are expected to occur more frequently with global warming.”

Besides climate modelling, departments such as molecular biophysics, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, physics, chemistry, earth sciences, aerospace, chemical and mechanical engineering will be extensive users of this facility, said Prof. Balakrishnan.

The computer has 8,192 processors operating at 700 MHz and has a main memory of 8 terabytes, and according to industry sources, is worth approximately $ 2 million.

But the real boost for SERC, Prof. Balakrishnan said, will come with the arrival of a 100-teraflops machine, expected to be acquired within three years, and for which talks have begun.

“There are many national initiatives in which IISc will be playing a key role. These are in the planning stages being part of the 11th Five Year Plan. As all of these fructify, and our own research grows, SERC will require 100 teraflops within three years and the fruits of this computing power must start bearing well before the end of the 11th Plan,” he said.

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