India will soon acquire its fastest supercomputer worth Rs. 900 crores and is expected to start operating by March next year, said Shri Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister for Earth Science. In her first visit to a research center under the ministry since taking office, Shri Rijiju said that with his acquisition India will acquire the weather monitoring mechanism with the highest resolution forecasting. The Minister addressed the media today during his visit to the National Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (NCMRWF) in NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh.
“The new computer can improve predictions by 12 to 6 km. Compared to the Cray XC-40 ‘Mihir’ supercomputer with a performance of 6.8 petaFLOPS (PFLOPS), India’s fastest supercomputer at present, the new supercomputer will have nearly triple the capacity, i.e. 18 PFLOPS,” he said. stated Shri Rijiji. “The facilities of this world-class center will benefit all sectors, all sectors of society, in fact every individual in the country will directly benefit from this institution,” he added.
Shri Rijiju said that India’s weather forecasting capability is improving day by day. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, India has made significant progress in the application of science and technology. We are also extending weather forecasting to neighboring countries and beyond,” he said.
The headquarters of NCMRWF, the Center of Excellence for Meteorological and Climate Modeling, is also home to the BIMSTEC Center on Weather and Climate (BCWC) of the regional grouping “Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation” (BIMSTEC), comprising seven Member States, five from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and two from South East Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand.
Shri Rijiju said that NCMRWF is a leading institution of its kind in the world. “It is a matter of great pride for India that our NCMRWF will become the world-class centre,” he said.
Shri Rijiju was briefed by Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences; Dr. VS Prasad, Chief and other Senior Scientists of NCMRWF.
