#OnThisDay
India's fastest and most powerful supercomputer, 'Pratyush,' was inaugurated on April 4th, 2018, by the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Harsh Vardhan. The supercomputer, named after the Sanskrit word for 'sun,' is capable of performing 6.8 petaflops, making it one of the top 100 fastest supercomputers in the world.
The supercomputer was jointly developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in Pune. It is intended to be used for weather and climate research, as well as for other scientific and engineering applications.
Pratyush is equipped with two computing systems, one for weather and climate research, and the other for general scientific research. The weather and climate system will be used to improve weather forecasts and to study the impact of climate change on the Indian subcontinent. The general-purpose system will be used for research in areas such as drug discovery, astrophysics, and computational fluid dynamics.
The supercomputer is also energy-efficient, as it uses a liquid cooling system that reduces its power consumption by up to 40 percent compared to traditional air-cooled systems. This makes it an eco-friendly option for large-scale scientific computing.
During the inauguration ceremony, Dr. Harsh Vardhan highlighted the importance of supercomputers for scientific research, saying, "Supercomputing is vital for numerical weather prediction, climate modeling, computational astrophysics, and other areas of research that require massive computational power. Pratyush will help India make rapid progress in these fields and establish itself as a global leader in scientific computing."
Pratyush is a major milestone in India's efforts to develop its scientific and technological capabilities. With its impressive computing power and energy efficiency, it has the potential to drive new discoveries and innovations in a wide range of fields.
