EKA, Tata made India's first Super computer

Have you ever heard of EKA? Eka was the first super computer built in house by Tata Sons

This is the story of how Eka was born. Eka, the first Indian machine to feature amongst the ten fastest supercomputers in the world. Eka, a Tata product.

Way back in 1997, Deep Blue, a supercomputer created by IBM, defeated the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. It could evaluate an amazing 200 million positions on the chessboard, in a single second. A few years later, Watson, again created by IBM, began winning tough game shows against humans. 

These supercomputers caught the imagination of mankind. They were incredibly fast, and could solve complex problems with astonishing ease. They could help scientists in important areas such as weather forecasting, aerodynamic research, nuclear test simulation, car design and development of life-saving drugs. 

Hence, advanced countries such as USA, Europe, China and Japan, were all investing in supercomputers. Unfortunately, until 2007, India did not have a powerful supercomputer in this list. For a country which wished to take its rightful place amongst the top economies of the world, this was an unpardonable omission.

S. Ramadorai, a Tata veteran who has been Managing Director and then Vice-Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s flagship IT services firm, was acutely aware of this gap. Discussing this subject, he once told me - “The Tatas have had a history in this field. Way back in the 1980s, we had an association with Elxsi, who were working on large mainframe computers.

We built some large machines, and TCS bought one of them. We used it primarily for research and development.” Other Indian organisations such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) continued to actively pursue this area. However, PARAM, India’s first supercomputer, created in 1991, never made it to the top echelons of this field.

Around 2000, TCS began recruiting scientists who were passionate about supercomputing and VLSI design. One such scientist was Dr. Sunil Sherlekar, a prominent research scholar with a doctoral degree from IIT Bombay. Sherlekar was in contact with his classmate, Dr. Narendra Karmarkar, the noted and highly cited Indian mathematician. Soon, their conversation turned to the area of supercomputing. 

One day, Sherlekar made his way to Ramadorai’s corner office. “We would like to build a supercomputer”, he told Ramadorai, “will the Tatas support this ?” This was not merely an ambitious request, it was audacious in its intent, requiring significant technical and financial commitment. Yet Ramadorai immediately saw the great impact such a project could have for the country and for the Tata Group. He wrote out a note to Ratan Tata, suggesting that this was an idea worth looking at. 

Sherlekar recalls five meetings with Ratan Tata, where the supercomputer proposal was discussed. Ratan Tata was excited, but also insisted that a detailed business plan be written out, to establish the economic rationale. Three different revenue streams were mapped out, to generate the returns necessary to support such a large investment. This plan then became the blueprint for the project, which envisaged the launch of a Tata supercomputer by November 2007. The machine, when ready, would be the fastest in the world.

The Board of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, approved this plan in March 2006. It was a bold decision, because, for the country, it was like going “where no man had gone before”. A new company, Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), was established in Pune to implement the project. Intermediate milestones were defined, and a team of brilliant research engineers began their work. There was super excitement and energy, all around.

A prototype was first created, which was much smaller than the ultimate machine, but an essential step in the journey. Then, in July 2007, there was an unexpected development, with the potential to derail the project. Karmarkar, one of the founder members, decided to quit the project, because he had developed differences with the Tata Group on how the venture should progress.  

A departure such as this could have paralysed the project, but the Tatas decided to persist. Ramadorai spoke to Sherlekar, who confirmed his team’s and his own confidence in taking the project forward. He saw no reason to give up the opportunity to create the country’s first supercomputer that would feature amongst the world’s fastest – a distinction that would live on in history forever. Sherlekar recalls an accidental meeting with Ratan Tata, on the sidelines of a Tata Group conference, during those anxious days.

“I was trying my best to avoid Ratan Tata, perhaps because my friend Karmarkar had left the project recently. Suddenly, I felt a tug at my elbow, and I turned around. It was Ratan Tata. He said – “You know, I am sorry we could not reach an agreement with Karmarkar. But you have a good team. I know you can take it forward.” This was a wonderful gesture, and it touched me.”

The team took the project forward, with determination. Ramadorai recalls – “Finally, I decided that we had to proceed. We had to show the world that we had come of age in high-performance computing.”

Under Ramadorai’s leadership, the machine was named EKA, which means “one” in Sanskrit. The choice of a Sanskrit word illustrates the national pride inherent in this project. “Eka” is all about the pioneering desire to be first, and symbolic of the many firsts that this supercomputer would eventually achieve.

The objective of the project was altered, from a 1-petaflop machine to a 100-teraflop supercomputer, with a lower investment, but to be ready by the original target date of 2007. This may not be the fastest in the world, but it would have an excellent chance of making it to the top ten, a big breakthrough in itself, for the country. To meet that year’s deadline, the supercomputer would have to be created latest by 31st October 2007.

Sherlekar and his team worked furiously, round the clock. There were now less than seven weeks to go, to meet this October deadline. Several technical challenges had to be mastered. Challenges of cabling, cooling and the interconnect technology. Each of these challenges were addressed, and innovative solutions found. For instance, to ensure the required cooling, the EKA team developed a circular architecture for the machine. 

Around 20th October, EKA was finally ready. But suddenly, a major problem reared its head. To be ranked amongst the top supercomputers, crossing a speed of 100 teraflops was essential. However, EKA was clocking in only 97 teraflops in its pre-final tests, again and again.

The EKA team racked its brains. Then they remembered, from their experience, some Russian scientists who could help with exactly such a problem. They found them somewhere in Mexico, working with Intel. One of the young EKA engineers knew that Russian scientists generally loved Charminar cigarettes and Kingfisher beer. So he told them – “Help me solve this problem and I will send you an entire crate of Kingfisher beer !”

This generous offer of Indian beer appears to have helped immediately. The Russian scientists, after obtaining permission from their employer, helped the EKA team address the last pending problem. The matter was resolved just hours before the 31st October deadline. At 8:30 pm. that evening, EKA went past the century mark, and clocked in at a speed of 118 teraflops ! There was a loud round of applause, which appeared never to stop. Followed by a deep, respectful silence.

EKA immediately submitted its data to the committee that decides on the global supercomputer rankings. The team then had to wait, until the rankings were announced. These were nail-biting moments. Would they achieve Ramadorai’s target, of being within the top ten in the world ?

And then, on 6th November 2007, when the rankings were announced, EKA stood fourth! The team had created the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world, beating machines from every other continent, on their very first attempt.

Sherlekar was sleeping in his mother’s home in Pune when he received a call, well past midnight, informing him of this wonderful news. He sent Ramadorai a text message on his mobile. He received an immediate response – “Congratulations ! India must announce this to the world.”

Soon, the world woke up to this news. The Economic Times said – “The supercomputer named EKA, the first supercomputer to have been developed totally by a corporation without any Government help, now shares the rarefied heights of supercomputing with two American and one German supercomputer.”

EKA’s performance reverberated throughout the supercomputing industry. There was global shock, and surprise, that India could gain this coveted position, normally the domain of the richest countries of the world.

EKA was also put to good use, very soon. The supercomputer was used in the launch of India’s moon vehicle, Chandrayaan, by the Indian Space Research Organisation. One of the most challenging aspects here is predicting weather at the time of the launch, and EKA did this perfectly. The then Chairman of ISRO publicly expressed appreciation for the brilliant work done by EKA, during this very successful launch. 

EKA was also used in many other applications, over the next few years - to develop new nanofluids, to improve aerodynamics of cars, and, interestingly, to create India’s first fully animated 3-D feature film. However, for a private enterprise, generating adequate commercial business on a continuing basis, to make further investments behind such a supercomputer, became a challenge.

No wonder that, in the years thereafter, particularly given the large investments and the nature of applications involved, supercomputer development in our country has been taken forward primarily by the Government of India. Supercomputers that were much faster than EKA soon took birth. This year, the supercomputers PRATYUSH and MIHIR, both developed by India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences, rank amongst the top 100 in the world.

Way back in 2007, EKA put India firmly on the world super computing map. It was indeed “one of its kind”, and it heralded a new era for India.

This was indeed a proud moment for India to have our own indigenous super computer

based on a forwarded write up by Harish Bhat, Brand Custodian, Tata Sons

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