AUTOMOTIVE

With preliminary talks over, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and C-DAC are trying to convince the Russians to try out the sub-scale version of Param Padma first. For the uninitiated, Param Padma has a scalable memory of 100 Terabytes and is installed at C-DAC's knowledge park in Bangalore. Powered by C-DAC's flexible High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) software, the supercomputer is made up of 56 clusters, each one in turn made up of 16 high speed processor chips. Earlier this week, a Russian team, led by Lenin prizewinner scientist and Russian Indian Centre for Advance Computing Research (RICCR) president Oleg Belotskorovsky, had a round of talks with scientists at C-DAC here. Eventually, the Indian supercomputer will be commissioned at the RICCR. Though the deliberations with Russia will continue for a few more months, the C-DAC is positive that the deal will come through. Dr Sharad Purohit, Director C-DAC, said the Russians have been offered three configurations of 100 gigaflop, 200 gigaflop or a maximum 400 gigaflop as per prima facie applications specified by them. "Right now, we can give them a maximum 40 per cent of our Param Padma computing power,'' he said. So what will Russia do with Param Padma? Dr Purohit said the RICCR wants to undertake fundamental research on cutting-edge topics such as turbulence in air and related pressure dynamics besides mathematical modelling in computational fluid mechanics. Interestingly, the Russians also want to use the Param Padma for advanced research in the human respiratory system, especially of drug addicts; and find out the impact on the brain when there's a high-speed collision. Besides, the Russians will definitely use Param Padma for applied research in space and material sciences, though the details are under wraps. The Russians have also revealed their intention to use Padma's computing for high-end research in oil exploration and weather forecasting. The oil exploration part, in particular, is quite interesting as the Russians have a huge reserve of natural fuel.