AIRAWAT works on the operating system Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS. (Representational image)
India's AI supercomputer AIRAWAT has been ranked 75th in the Top 500 Global Supercomputing List. The rankings were announced at the 61st edition of the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2023) held in Germany.
Installed at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Pune, Maharashtra, the AIRAWAT supercomputer is India's largest and fester supercomputer with a speed of 13,170 teraflops (Rpeak). The AI system was installed as part of the government's National Program on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
According to C-DAC, AIRAWAT works on the operating system Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS and was installed earlier this year at the centre.
Highlighting the significance of AI, Alkesh Sharma, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary, said it is the “most promising technology in the digital age” that India has a “strong ecosystem and competitive advantage for AI due to its massive data availability, strong digital economy and skilled workforce”.
He added, “India has been working in the Applied AI with a focus on Natural Language Processing, Image Procession, Pattern Recognition, Agriculture, Medical Imaging, Education, Health Care, Audio assistance, Robotics and developing solutions for the strategic sectors.”
Besides AIRAWAT, India's three other supercomputers have made it to the Top 500 Global Supercomputing List. These include the PARAM Siddhi-AI supercomputer which has been ranked 131st on the list. It is also installed at the C-DAC, Pune. The Pratyush supercomputer at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has secured the 169th position while Mihir supercomputer at the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting has been ranked 316th on the list.
The Top 500 Global Supercomputing List ranks the fastest computer systems around the world. It was started in 1993 and the list is updated every six months. The ranking is done on the basis of the best Linpack benchmark performance achieved by the computers.