Dated October 30, 2002
Rediff.com - Online Edition

The Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is launching its first one teraflop supercomputing machine in Pune for providing high-speed connectivity to public and private sector companies, besides R&D centers and the academia across the country.

To be launched on December 16, this first of its kind high-end facility will also be linked to the 10 teraflop Information Grid (I-Grid), to be set by the Union Ministry of Information Technology soon, with an investment of Rs. 130 crore (Rs. 1.30 billion).

Disclosing this in Bangalore on Wednesday, Union Communications and IT Ministry Secretary Shri. Rajeeva Ratna Shah said the I-Grid project had been approved in principle, and would be located in 10 cities, including the seven IITs, and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

"The I-Grid will have a high-speed processing of one teraflop at each of the location on a network basis for optimal utilization of the bandwidth by several users in diverse applications such as atmosphere and oceanography, weather forecasting, fluid dynamics, space, bio-informatics and bio-computing, besides nano-technology and nano-computing," Shah stated.

As a facilitator, the IT ministry will provide the critical infrastructure for greater connectivity to the end-users though its use for many of the applications will take time.

"Our main focus is to provide an enabling infrastructure to even the service industry such as banks and financial institutions. The I-Grid project will have a revenue stream to recover the investment cost and maintain it by the IT department," Shah asserted.

Earlier, delivering the keynote address at the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs from the Silicon Valley of the US) conference, organized as part of the ongoing five-day Bangalore IT.Com 2002, Shah said India would have to build knowledge management in bio-informatics and bio computing, nano-informatics and nano-computing to move up the value chain on its existing strengths acquired in information and communication technologies.

"India boasts of a high international profile of software industry. We have a vibrant pharmaceutical industry and rapidly emerging biotech industry. A world class network of educational and research institutions," Shah claimed.