IIT-Kanpur unveils new supercomputer

KANPUR: IIT-Kanpur on Tuesday unveiled its second supercomputer, which ranks fifth in the country in terms of performance and is considered the best for educational institutions.

The machine, assembled at IIT-Kanpur by a team headed by the institute's deputy director SC Srivastava, was unveiled by him along with Ashish Dutta, head of the computer centre. They said the supercomputer would be used for regular education, research and training purposes.

"Supercomputers are used in many areas of science and engineering research," said Dutta. "The general area of research that uses supercomputers is called high-performance computing (HPC). HPC can simulate nuclear explosions, evolution of galaxies, effects of pacemaker redesign, genetics and genetic related diseases, medical drug discovery, aircraft flight, aerodynamics, etc."

He said the new supercomputer facility had come up at a cost of about Rs 48 crore.

The supercomputer has been ranked 130th in TOP500, an international list of the most powerful computer systems.