Computers, India: history, milestones
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The Param Yuva II has a capacity of 524 teraflops and within three weeks of the launch, it was already running at 70% of its capacity. Precise weather forecasting, faster tapping of natural resources in the sea and designing of customized drugs are possible using Param Yuva II. The IITM supercomputer will start functioning in the next two to three months. | The Param Yuva II has a capacity of 524 teraflops and within three weeks of the launch, it was already running at 70% of its capacity. Precise weather forecasting, faster tapping of natural resources in the sea and designing of customized drugs are possible using Param Yuva II. The IITM supercomputer will start functioning in the next two to three months. | ||
| + | ==2016: India ranked 9th in global race for supercomputers == | ||
| + | [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=LEARNING-WITH-THE-TIMES-India-ranked-9th-in-28112016012029 - India ranked 9th in global race of supercomputers Nov 28 2016 : The Times of India] | ||
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| + | What is a supercomputer? | ||
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| + | Supercomputers are broadly defined as the fastest computing systems at any given time and are used for scientific purposes that require handling of troves of data at high speed. This includes testing mathematical models using thousands of variables to infer complex phenomena like weather, climate change, nuclear reactions, origin of the universe and so on. | ||
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| + | How is the computing power of a supercomputer measured? | ||
| + | |||
| + | The standard unit to measure computational power is FLOPSfloating point operations per second. It is the number of mathematical operations involving fractions that a computer can do per second. For the most basic computers and smartphones, the computational ability is a few megaflops (more than a million operations per second). Chinese supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight -which is ranked the fastest in the world by Top500 (a supercomputer ranking project) -has a computational ability of 93 petaflops, more than a billion times faster than normal computers. Recently it was announced that Japan will spend $173 billion to bu ild the world's fastest supercomputer system with a capacity of 130 petaflops. | ||
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| + | What problems were faced by supercomputer pioneers who worked to enhance computer speed? | ||
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| + | First, the maximum speed at which electronic signals can travel cannot be faster than the speed of light. Second, because of frequent receiving and transmission of these signals, it was important to have a suitable cooling technique to control the temperature of the system. Both barriers were tackled by decreasing the lengths these signals were re quired to traverse by using circuit boards and innovation in cooling techniques.Other advancements involved introduction of vector arithmetic in computing. | ||
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| + | When was the world's first supercomputer built? | ||
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| + | In 1965, CDC 6600, a supercomputer designed by US engineer Seymour Cray was installed at the CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. CDC 6600 had a computational capaci ty of three megaflops. In the 1970s, the series CDC 7600 was introduced, which was10 times faster than the earlier version. In 1976, the Cray-1supercomputer was installed in the Los Alamos laboratory with a computation capacity of 160 megaflops. | ||
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| + | What were the limitations of Cray's designs? | ||
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| + | Cray's designs used expensive technology and liquid immersion technology to achieve high speeds. W Daniel Hill, an MIT graduate proposed a decentralised control instead of one CPU, which meant several inexpensive processors could be arran ged to achieve speeds comparable to the most expensive supercomputer designed by Cray. Hill designed the CM-1 in 1985, which used thousands of inexpensive processors to achieve the same speed as Cray's computer. | ||
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| + | Which countries are the world leaders in supercomputers today? | ||
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| + | Of the 500 fastest supercomputers, the highest numbers are in the US and China, each having 171 such systems. Germany , Japan and France each have 20 or more such systems. India is ranked 9th with five of its supercomputers listed in Top500. | ||
Revision as of 19:02, 19 January 2017
This is a collection of newspaper articles selected for the excellence of their content. |
Supercomputers and India
Pune supercomputers among world’s fastest
Swati Shinde Gole TNN 2013/06/20
Pune: Two computers from Pune feature among the top 100 in the list of 500 fastest supercomputers in the world.
While the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) supercomputer stands 36th in the list, Param Yuva II, developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), has bagged the 69th position. The IITM supercomputer is yet to be installed while the Param Yuva II became operational this February.
The list of the world’s top 500 supercomputers was announced on Tuesday at the launch of the opening session of the International Supercomputing conference in Leipzig, Germany.
The Param Yuva II has a capacity of 524 teraflops and within three weeks of the launch, it was already running at 70% of its capacity. Precise weather forecasting, faster tapping of natural resources in the sea and designing of customized drugs are possible using Param Yuva II. The IITM supercomputer will start functioning in the next two to three months.
2016: India ranked 9th in global race for supercomputers
- India ranked 9th in global race of supercomputers Nov 28 2016 : The Times of India
What is a supercomputer?
Supercomputers are broadly defined as the fastest computing systems at any given time and are used for scientific purposes that require handling of troves of data at high speed. This includes testing mathematical models using thousands of variables to infer complex phenomena like weather, climate change, nuclear reactions, origin of the universe and so on.
How is the computing power of a supercomputer measured?
The standard unit to measure computational power is FLOPSfloating point operations per second. It is the number of mathematical operations involving fractions that a computer can do per second. For the most basic computers and smartphones, the computational ability is a few megaflops (more than a million operations per second). Chinese supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight -which is ranked the fastest in the world by Top500 (a supercomputer ranking project) -has a computational ability of 93 petaflops, more than a billion times faster than normal computers. Recently it was announced that Japan will spend $173 billion to bu ild the world's fastest supercomputer system with a capacity of 130 petaflops.
What problems were faced by supercomputer pioneers who worked to enhance computer speed?
First, the maximum speed at which electronic signals can travel cannot be faster than the speed of light. Second, because of frequent receiving and transmission of these signals, it was important to have a suitable cooling technique to control the temperature of the system. Both barriers were tackled by decreasing the lengths these signals were re quired to traverse by using circuit boards and innovation in cooling techniques.Other advancements involved introduction of vector arithmetic in computing.
When was the world's first supercomputer built?
In 1965, CDC 6600, a supercomputer designed by US engineer Seymour Cray was installed at the CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. CDC 6600 had a computational capaci ty of three megaflops. In the 1970s, the series CDC 7600 was introduced, which was10 times faster than the earlier version. In 1976, the Cray-1supercomputer was installed in the Los Alamos laboratory with a computation capacity of 160 megaflops.
What were the limitations of Cray's designs?
Cray's designs used expensive technology and liquid immersion technology to achieve high speeds. W Daniel Hill, an MIT graduate proposed a decentralised control instead of one CPU, which meant several inexpensive processors could be arran ged to achieve speeds comparable to the most expensive supercomputer designed by Cray. Hill designed the CM-1 in 1985, which used thousands of inexpensive processors to achieve the same speed as Cray's computer.
Which countries are the world leaders in supercomputers today?
Of the 500 fastest supercomputers, the highest numbers are in the US and China, each having 171 such systems. Germany , Japan and France each have 20 or more such systems. India is ranked 9th with five of its supercomputers listed in Top500.
