GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Indigenisation of technology and developing new technology.
Context:
As per the global ranking service of super-computers (Top 500), India has only 3 top-ranked supercomputers among 500 and none in the top 100.
- (Param Siddhi (5.27 PFlops), Param Ganga (1.66 PFlops) and Pratyush supercomputer (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s))
Status:
- India had 2 in the top 100 in 2020
- World: China and the US account for nearly two-thirds of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.
- Frontier Supercomputer: The world’s fastest supercomputer, Frontier, located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, offers a peak performance of 1,685 PFlops.
Benefits of Supercomputers:
High-speed computation: E.g., in May 2020, IBM’s Summit supercomputer, helped researchers find drug compounds that could stop the covid-19 virus from infecting host cells in just 2-3 days.
Other areas: chemistry formulations, protein folding, biomedicine, space (for satellite placements) and climate research.
India’s steps:
National Supercomputing Mission (NSM): Fifteen supercomputers, with an aggregate, compute capacity of 24 petaflops, have been installed in the country since 2015 under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
- The National Supercomputing Mission (started in 2015) is intended to indigenise the development and manufacturing of powerful computers., with the National Knowledge Network (NKN)as the backbone
- The mission is planned in three phases:
- Phase Ilooks at assembling supercomputers
- Phase IIlooks at manufacturing certain components within the country
- Phase IIIwhere a supercomputer is designed by India
- A department of MeitY, C-DAC is responsible for designing, developing, and commissioning supercomputers under NSM.
What is a Supercomputer?
A supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest operational rate for computers.
- India’s first supercomputer was PARAM 8000.
- PARAM Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously
PetaFlops: The computing power of a supercomputer is measured in floating-point operations per second, or FLOPS. One PetaFlops is equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion) FLOPS, or one thousand TeraFlops.
Insta Links
National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
Practice Questions
Q. Though India is a major player in Information Technology, it lacks self-dependence in the manufacture of critical computing technology. Enumerate the steps the government is taking to fill this gap. (10M)
Q. In the context of digital technologies for entertainment, consider the following statements:
- In Augmented Reality (AR), a simulated environment is created and the physical world is completely shut out.
- In Virtual Reality (VR), images generated from a computer are projected onto real-life objects or surroundings.
- AR allows individuals to be present in the world and improves the experience using the camera of a smartphone or PC.
- VR closes the world, and transposes an individual, providing a complete immersion experience.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 and 4
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) 4 only
Answer: B
AR uses a real-world setting while VR is completely virtual. AR users can control their presence in the real world; VR users are controlled by the system. VR requires a headset device, but AR can be accessed with a smartphone. AR enhances both the virtual and real-world while VR only enhances a fictional reality.
Source: Live Mint
