National supercomputing mission to boost local hardware manufacturing

For the mission, the processes will be aligned with Make in India initiative

India's national supercomputing mission expects that the Rs 4,500 crore being spent on building supercomputers across universities and research centres would give a leg up to local manufacturing of hardware.

While India has built expertise in creating supercomputing software applications over the years, the focus is now being shifted to building supercomputer hardware in the country, which, up until now, has been procured and assembled.

Rajat Moona, director-general of the Centre of Development for Advanced Computing (CDAC), the government agency spearheading the mission, told Business Standard that except for semiconductor chips, the mission would look at local design and manufacturing of entire supercomputing hardware.

"We are aligning our processes of infrastructure with Make in India initiative. We are saying that supercomputers should be built within the country," said Moona. "Except for the chips, for which India does not have required infrastructure, CDAC will be building the entire supercomputing hardware and software, integration, cooling system, mechanical systems, data centre layout, everything put together, the complete package."

"That's very prominent step we are taking, mainly because it will take the supercomputing to the newer heights in the country," he said. "This would be a big push for electronic hardware manufacturing in the country."

According to a 2015 report by Deloitte, the demand for electronics hardware in India is projected to increase to $400 billion by 2020, however, the estimated domestic production could rise to $104 billion only if things do not change, creating a gap of $296 billion. The government has been aggressively scouting global companies to set up manufacturing bases in the country. Over the last 15 months, the country has received electronic manufacturing proposals worth Rs 1 lakh crore, said Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said last week.

CDAC is also looking to collaborate with global supercomputer manufacturers for knowledge and technology sharing. Moona said they are in the process of finalizing a Request for Proposal (RFP) document for inviting private players to design and build supercomputing infrastructure in partnership with them. Companies including Lenovo, HPE and IBM have already shown interest in participating in the mission.

"The aim is to work with various manufacturing units to build supercomputers in the country. It will be a big impetus for the electronic manufacturing," Moona said. "This will create an ecosystem for building high-end computer hardware in India."

"We have been talking to almost all world players in supercomputing space. We will be actually engaging with them in a very transparent manner. Once our RFP is out, we will be identifying our partners," he added.

CDAC has been in touch with companies such as HPE, Cray, IBM, Lenovo, Intel and AMD for the mission. The collaboration will involve areas like technology, development, transfer and manufacturing of motherboards, PCBs (printed circuit boards) and cooling solutions in addition to interconnect, storage and software.

"The very idea of developing the capability to build high end computers is a good initiative by the government, because this is the capability of the new economy. This kind of capability puts shine on India brand that will help the country in becoming electronic manufacturing hub, said Jaideep Mehta, Managing Director - IDC India and South Asia. While supercomputing is not a volume driven area, it will useful in attracting global component manufacturers to the country and creating the required ecosystem, which can give a leg up to local manufacturing.