India Unveils Its Fastest Supercomputer – “Pratyush”
On Monday, January 8, 2018, India proudly unveiled its fastest supercomputer, ‘Pratyush’, an advanced high-performance computing system capable of delivering a peak power of 6.8 petaflops.
To put it in perspective, one petaflop equals one million billion (10¹⁵) floating-point operations per second, representing an enormous leap in computational capacity.
According to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pratyush ranks among the top four fastest supercomputers in the world specifically designed for weather and climate research. Its installation has propelled India’s position on the global Top500 list of supercomputers from the 300s to within the top 30, marking a major technological milestone.
Purpose and Functionality
The government had sanctioned ₹400 crore to develop a 10-petaflop machine aimed at advancing India’s weather forecasting capabilities. The core functionality of Pratyush lies in monsoon forecasting using dynamic simulation models.
These models simulate the weather patterns for months like June to September and predict real-time climatic behavior. With its immense computational power, Pratyush can now map Indian regions at a resolution of 3 km and global regions at 12 km, enhancing the accuracy of forecasts significantly.
The system is expected to be a game-changer in predicting natural calamities such as floods and tsunamis, and in monitoring monsoon behavior — crucial information for India’s agricultural sector. This advancement offers tremendous benefits for farmers, helping mitigate crop losses caused by unpredictable weather conditions.
Installation and Technical Setup
Pratyush has been deployed across two major institutions in India:
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4.0 petaflops HPC facility at IITM, Pune
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2.8 petaflops HPC facility at National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF), Noida
This distributed setup ensures continuous, high-speed data processing and efficient sharing of climate models between research centers.
Impact and Benefits
The installation of Pratyush marks a significant milestone in India’s commitment to scientific research and innovation. By accelerating computational modeling, the supercomputer will:
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Strengthen weather and monsoon forecasting
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Support disaster preparedness and management
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Boost research activities across multiple Earth Science disciplines
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Enhance the accuracy of early warnings for natural disasters
According to IITM, this increase in supercomputing power will have a profound impact on societal applications and academic research, giving a strong push to projects under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
India’s Other Supercomputers
With Pratyush’s launch, India has entered the top 30 supercomputing nations globally. As of June 2017, the following Indian systems were also listed among the Top 500 supercomputers worldwide:
| Rank | Supercomputer | Institute / Organization | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| 165 | SahasraT | Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru | Cray XC40 |
| 260 | Aaditya | Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune | iDataPlex DX360M4 |
| 355 | TIFR Cray XC30 | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai | Cray XC30 |
| 391 | HP Apollo 6000 XL230/250 | Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi | HP Apollo 6000 |
Conclusion
The unveiling of Pratyush marks a transformative step for India in the field of supercomputing and climate research. By combining massive computational power with advanced meteorological models, India is now better equipped to predict, prepare for, and respond to natural phenomena with enhanced precision — a major leap forward in both science and sustainability.