The transformational combo: supercomputers and AI
Supercomputers today can do amazing things that we couldn't even imagine to be possible a few years ago. Supercomputers are extremely powerful computers that are super fast and high performing. So far, their usage has been limited to scientific research and engineering works that process super complex calculations and that too at super high speeds.
These computers are not used for the conventional everyday general tasks that we perform on our laptops or desktops for obvious reasons. There is no point engaging these precious, expensive, and super-smart machines on tasks that anyways can be done by simple computers.
An initiative by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will commission India's largest HPC-AI supercomputer, 'PARAM Siddhi – AI'.
This positions India among the top countries on AI supercomputing research and innovation. The initiative has been spearheaded by Abhishek Das, Scientist and Program Director (HPC-AI Infrastructure Development) at C-DAC, who envisioned and designed the architecture for the largest HPC-AI infrastructure in India. The model was approved by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Electronics and IT and Law & Justice; Ajay Prakash Sawhney (Secretary, MeitY), Prof Ashutosh Sharma (Secretary, DST) and recommendation of National Supercomputing Mission (NSM – a government initiative) Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) chaired by Dr V K Saraswat, Member, Niti Aayog.
PARAM Siddhi – AI will have 210 AI Petaflops (6.5 Petaflops Peak DP) and will be based on the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture comprising 42 NVIDIA DGX A100 systems, connected with NVIDIA Mellanox HDR InfiniBand networking along with indigenously developed HPC-AI engine, Software Frameworks, Cloud Platform by C-DAC.
Dr Hemant Darbari, Director General, C-DAC said that "PARAM Siddhi-AI will play a pivotal role in developing a vibrant ecosystem for research and innovation in science and engineering. With three decades of expertise in AI and augmenting the AI and Language Computing Mission Mode Program of C-DAC, this infrastructure will accelerate experiments and outcomes for India specific grand challenge problems in Health Care, Education, Energy, Cyber Security, Space, Automotive and Agriculture. It will catalyze partnerships with the Academia, Industry, MSMEs and Start-up"
There is a range of application areas for supercomputers:
Complex physical phenomenon
Climate and weather
Fluid dynamics
Oil and gas exploration
Online currency world (Bitcoin)
Training models for AI
Testing mathematical models
Nuclear reactors
Cryptology
The disadvantage with electronic signals is that they cannot travel faster than the speed of light, which gives way to supercomputers that have multiple CPUs. This scenario of multiple CPUs enables high computational speed.
Supercomputers have significantly small wire connections in the circuit board, and hence they are power-packed. In easier words, supercomputers are clusters of many traditional computers with a lot of advancements.
Without any doubt, we know that all major tech-giants are engaged in the development of supercomputers and making them better with added functionalities. Microsoft too has recently developed a supercomputer for OpenAI is a single system with more than 285,000 CPU cores, 10,000 GPUs, and 400 gigabits per second of network connectivity for each GPU server. It has the enhanced capabilities of sturdy cloud infrastructure and a sustainable data centre with access to Azure services.
Supercomputers have pretty unique features that provide them with an edge over conventional computers. These features include having multiple CPUs which aid the interpretation and execution of complex arithmetic and logical operations sequentially. They use parallel processing, which makes them swift multitaskers.
These computers are all set to enter various domains and not just be limited to a handful of application areas. They are proving their worth in fields of medicine, too, with AI powering them. These devices are transformational, given they are used in the right direction in a safe, secure, and sustainable manner.
These AI-powered supercomputers will help unleash incredible innovation to address current challenges and that of the fu
Credits : https://indiaai.gov.in