A High Performance Computing (HPC) facility will be put in place at the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU), here, with the acquisition of a PARAM YUVA II supercomputer from C-DAC Pune in 2016.
The supercomputer is expected to cost the university Rs.23 crore and is expected to boost cutting edge research in areas, including Computational Fluid Dynamics, Molecular Dynamics, Computational Biology, Computational Chemistry and Structural Dynamics. The university has an understanding with researchers in leading universities in the West for various research activities, according to a press note issued here.
Initially the university will procure a PARAM SHAVAK supercomputer with 3.8 teraflops capability. The PARAM YUVA II supercomputer with 532 teraflops capability will be upgraded to 1 petaflops capability in 2017. This HPC can be remotely accessed by researchers from all 154 affiliated colleges of the university.
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“High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure is essential and HPC facility will be a university-wide shared resource that will be a focal point for strengthening and extending existing research and collaborations and will serve as a platform for developing new research and educational initiatives and collaborations and will serve as a platform for developing new research and educational initiatives,” the press note quoted the KTU Vice Chancellor Kuncheria P. Isaac as saying.
Research tie-ups
With different premier foreign universities such as the Stevens Institute, MIT, Purdue, University of Michigan and Illinois willing to collaborate with KTU in research activities, the main hurdle now is the non-availability of resources. The setting up of the supercomputing facility is expected to address this lacuna in a major way.
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The acquisition of the supercomputer would take high performance computing to 5,000-odd faculty members and 50,000 engineering students under the KTU. Moreover, there are about 5,000 students doing their masters programme in engineering under the KTU. There are about 700 faculty members who have a doctorate. About 65 per cent of their work has to do with computational analysis, the press note said.
With the arrival of the supercomputer, the data and research centre of KTU, here, would be able to fully utilise its proximity to national research centres such as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), BrahMosAerospace Limited, CSIR – National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), Technopark, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT). Many of KTU’s students and faculty members are associated with projects at these institutions, the press note added.
Supercomputer to boost cutting edge research in various areas
Can be remotely accessed by researchers