IIT Roorkee inks MoU with C-DAC to establish 1.3 Petaflop High-Performance Computing Facility

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Development in Advanced Computing(C-DAC) to establish a state-of the art 1.3 Petaflop High Performance Computing (1.3PF-HPC) Facility to facilitate research and development activities in the presence of Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Education, Communication and Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India Shri Sanjay Dhotre.

The MoU was signed between Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director on behalf of IIT Roorkee and Dr. Hemant Darbari, Director General on behalf of CDA. The objective of the MoU is to ensure the Supply, Installation, Commissioning and Operations of state-of-the-art HPC facility and Data Center ecosystem at IIT Roorkee. It is valid for five years.  The initiative will be funded under the National Supercomputing Mission- a joint initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

“The National Supercomputing Mission underscores our commitment to fulfill the goal of AatmaNirbhar Bharat. It is a key enabler to prepare a skilled workforce, generate job opportunities and contribute to India’s economy. Potential collaborations with international organizations and industry bodies to foster a world-class indigenous research ecosystem in the supercomputing technology is also being explored” said Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Education, Communication and Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India Shri Sanjay Dhotre.

“A 1.3 PF supercomputing facility will greatly boost our ability to carry out research on several interesting engineering and science problems. It will also improve our ability to attract more sponsored funding. We were waiting for such high computing power since long and are delighted that finally it has come” said Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.

Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Deputy Director and Head, Institute Computer Centre, IIT Roorkee said “Supercomputing has the potential to address complex global challenges. The initiative underscores our commitment to foster a top-notch tech-driven research ecosystem and set a benchmark in academic excellence”

According to the MoU, IIT Roorkee will contribute towards the NSM in areas of Application and System Software Environment, capacity-building and training of the manpower required for the Supercomputing Research across the nation. It will be mandated to make the HPC facility commissioned under this project for the faculty and students for academic and research purposes.

IIT Roorkee is currently ranked at 6th position in National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) and has been involved in high-level research and making a remarkable contribution to the R&D in engineering and science. The new research facility 1.3PF-HPC would aid researchers to solve complex problems using large amounts of data. The new HPC will serve as an essential compute environment for the modern-day research along with their theoretical and experimental work. Some of the major research areas requiring extensive use of HPC envisaged at IIT Roorkee are Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, Molecular Dynamics, Life Sciences and Bioinformatics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Weather research and forecasting, Data Sciences, Geosciences, Ground motion simulation, Computational Chemistry, Computational Material Science and Nanomaterials and many more.

CDAC will work closely with IIT Roorkee for the installation and commissioning of the HPC systems and data center equipment and offer suggestions and guidance in its maintenance and optimal utilization.

Dr. Hemant Darbari, Director General, C-DAC and an alumnus of IIT Roorkee mentioned that “IIT Roorkee is an institution par excellence and is renowned globally for its technical expertise. We are proud to partner with them in our endeavour to empower the faculty, research scholars and students with a High-End Computational Resource (1.66 Petaflops Supercomputing Facility) with Make-In-India components to accelerate research and innovation in science and engineering. Our Mission is to Establish Dependable and Secure Exa-Scale Eco-system with innovative designs, disruptive technologies and Expert Human resource.”

He further added “Our goal is to develop indigenous Hardware encompassing Exascale Chip Design, Design and Manufacture of Exascale Server Boards, Exascale Interconnects and Storage including Silicon-Photonics in line with Atmanirbhar Bharat to achieve complete Self Reliance”

The MoU also mandates both institutions to constitute a Joint Working Group (JWG) to plan, implement, monitor and review the progress of various activities from time-to-time. Both parties will also be entrusted to showcase the facility and handle visits to the facility for educational purposes. IIT Roorkee and CDAC will also jointly prepare the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Datacenter project and execute it as well.

The National Supercomputing Mission was launched in India in 2015 with an objective to attain self-reliance and enhance global competitiveness in the supercomputing technology and to establish state-of-the-art facilities to foster cutting-edge research in the discipline. The Mission aims to install all the supercomputers by 2022. India’s first supercomputer- PARAM 8000 was established in 1990. India embarked on its first HPC mission in 1988 and established the first Giga scale computer- PARAM 8000 in 1990.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing is the premier organization of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for carrying out research and development in IT, Electronics and associated areas. It is an autonomous Scientific Society registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 and the Bombay Public Trusts Act 1950.