India’s first multi-petaflop supercomputer, to improve monsoon and air quality forecast
, ET Bureau|
Jan 08, 2018, 07.32 PM IST
PUNE: India may get a better forecast of rainfall from the next monsoon season, while the number of farmers who receive weather information from IMD may increase by about 80% in next two years thanks to Pratyush, India's first multi-petaflops supercomputer set up at a cost of Rs 450 crore.
Union Minister of Earth Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan dedicated India's fastest and first multi-petaflops supercomputer to the nation on Monday at Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). The supercomputer named as 'Pratyush' meaning the Sun, will be a national facility for improving weather and climate forecasts and services under the umbrella of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt. of India.
"The number of farmers who receive weather information through text messages is expected to increase from 24 million at present to 45 million by 2019," said Harsh Vardhan.
MoES has been trying to scale down the weather forecast, which is presently given at district level, to block level. "With the help of Pratyush, blolck level forecast will be possible in another one year. The forecast of next monsoon will also get better," said Harsh Vardhan.
Presently, with around 1.0 PF peak capacity, India's ranking in HPC is much below the HPC rankings of major countries that generate weather/climate forecasts. With the augmentation of this new 'Pratyush" high performance computing (HPC) facility of 6.8 Peta Flops (PF), India's ranking will move from the 368 th position to around the top 30 in the Top500 list of HPC facilities in the world.
India will also be placed at the 4 th position after Japan, UK and USA for dedicated HPC resources for weather/climate community, from its 7th position at present.
The new HPC of 6.8 PF computational power is installed at two MoES Institutes. 4.0 Peta Flops HPC facility at IITM, Pune and 2.8 Peta Flops facility at NCMRWF, Noida, which will be inaugurated next week.
The minister claimed that the increased HPC capacity has helped to provide reliable forecast services like better prediction of seasonal, extended range short and media range predictions of monsoon, prediction cyclones like "Phailin", "HudHud", and the recent one "Ockhi" with adequate lead time, Tsunami warnings, extreme events like Uttrakhand floods, Kashmir floods and Mumbai/Gujarat extreme rainfall events of previous year.
Union Minister of Earth Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan dedicated India's fastest and first multi-petaflops supercomputer to the nation on Monday at Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). The supercomputer named as 'Pratyush' meaning the Sun, will be a national facility for improving weather and climate forecasts and services under the umbrella of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt. of India.
"The number of farmers who receive weather information through text messages is expected to increase from 24 million at present to 45 million by 2019," said Harsh Vardhan.
MoES has been trying to scale down the weather forecast, which is presently given at district level, to block level. "With the help of Pratyush, blolck level forecast will be possible in another one year. The forecast of next monsoon will also get better," said Harsh Vardhan.
Presently, with around 1.0 PF peak capacity, India's ranking in HPC is much below the HPC rankings of major countries that generate weather/climate forecasts. With the augmentation of this new 'Pratyush" high performance computing (HPC) facility of 6.8 Peta Flops (PF), India's ranking will move from the 368 th position to around the top 30 in the Top500 list of HPC facilities in the world.
India will also be placed at the 4 th position after Japan, UK and USA for dedicated HPC resources for weather/climate community, from its 7th position at present.
The new HPC of 6.8 PF computational power is installed at two MoES Institutes. 4.0 Peta Flops HPC facility at IITM, Pune and 2.8 Peta Flops facility at NCMRWF, Noida, which will be inaugurated next week.
The minister claimed that the increased HPC capacity has helped to provide reliable forecast services like better prediction of seasonal, extended range short and media range predictions of monsoon, prediction cyclones like "Phailin", "HudHud", and the recent one "Ockhi" with adequate lead time, Tsunami warnings, extreme events like Uttrakhand floods, Kashmir floods and Mumbai/Gujarat extreme rainfall events of previous year.
