About National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
- The National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) is a flagship initiative launched in 2015 by the Government of India to strengthen the nation’s High-Performance Computing (HPC)
- It aims to enhance India’s computational capacity in sectors like science, technology, academia, research, and industry, making the country self-reliant in supercomputing technologies.
- The mission is jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), and is implemented by C-DAC, Pune and IISc, Bengaluru.
- The key goal is to position India globally among top nations in supercomputing by enabling research, reducing technological import dependence, and creating a robust indigenous HPC ecosystem.
Key Achievements
- 34 supercomputers have been deployed with a total computational capacity of 35 Petaflops across top institutes like IITs, IISc, and C-DAC, including institutions in Tier II and Tier III cities.
- Supercomputers have recorded 85–95% utilisation, supporting over 10,000 researchers and 1,700+ PhD scholars from 200+ institutions.
- More than 1 crore computing jobs have been completed and over 1,500 research papers published, reflecting substantial research productivity.
- NSM has trained over 22,000 individuals in HPC and AI skills through five dedicated centres in Pune, Kharagpur, Chennai, Palakkad, and Goa.
Indigenisation Milestones
- "Rudra" HPC servers, developed indigenously, are the first HPC-class servers built in India, matching global standards.
- Supercomputers like PARAM Rudra (Pune, Delhi, Kolkata) have been dedicated for advanced research in physics, cosmology, and earth sciences.
- The Trinetra high-speed network (developed under NSM) boosts data transfer rates up to 200 Gbps and is being rolled out in phases – PoC, Trinetra-A (100 Gbps), and Trinetra-B (200 Gbps).
AI Supercomputing: AIRAWAT
- The AIRAWAT project is India’s AI-focused supercomputing initiative under NSM, offering a common AI computing platform for start-ups, researchers, and innovation hubs.
- The Proof of Concept (PoC) system of AIRAWAT features 200 petaflops of AI processing power, scalable to 790 AI petaflops.
- AIRAWAT secured 75th rank in the Top 500 Global Supercomputing List (ISC 2023, Germany), placing India among the top AI supercomputing nations.
Institutional Milestones
- PARAM Shivay (2019) at IIT-BHU was the first indigenous supercomputer under NSM.
- PARAM Pravega (2022) at IISc Bengaluru is among the largest academic supercomputers in India, with 3 petaflops processing power.
