Guwahati, Feb. 10: The Northeast got its first supercomputer, set up at Assam Engineering College here today.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi inaugurated the C-DAC & AEC Param Supercomputing Facility, a joint collaboration of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and the college.

The facility, set up at around Rs 60 lakh, will house the latest offering from C-DAC's labs, Param Shavak, which is in tabletop form (four in number) and considered one of the world's most compact supercomputers.

C-DAC is the premier research and development organisation of the Centre's department of electronics and information technology for carrying out research and development in IT, electronics and associated areas.

The supercomputing facility will begin operations with four units of the Param Shavak supercomputing system. Supercomputing experts from C-DAC had earlier visited the college to deliver and deploy the system. The system is meant for research organisations and academic institutions that are on the verge of adopting high-performing computing culture.

Param Shavak is specially designed to provide computational resource with advanced technologies to perform high-end computations for scientific, engineering and academic programmes to address and catalyse research, using modelling, simulation and data analysis. This initiative is expected to create a high-performing computing-aware skilled workforce and promote research by integrating leading-edge emerging technologies at the grassroots level.

C-DAC director-general Rajat Moona said supercomputing today has become the new paradigm for growth and development across the world. "We have always realised that the supercomputing scenario requires a uniform ecosystem that fosters growth both on the systems and the users simultaneously. Only then can India's roadmap for supercomputing enter a more comprehensive state of realisation."

Moona said with the progress of technology, supercomputing, which had earlier been an elite technology, is now readily available for the common user, thereby multiplying its potential benefits without the high cost of investments that plagued its reach earlier.

"Param Shavak is an offspring of this thought process. It is our answer to break through the elitist tag of supercomputing. We believe that every technical institute that believes in progressive education will surely see the return of investment on these systems, and thereby partner with us in tapping their own potential for creating the perfect ecosystem."

C-DAC executive director Hemant Darbari said they were proud to be a partner with Assam Engineering College, which has produced many pioneers in several branches of engineering and technology. "We are happy that the college has chosen to raise the bar for technical education in the state by introducing supercomputing in their curriculum," he said. Moona said five more supercomputers are in the pipeline in the region at the NITs in Agartala, Silchar, Sikkim and Manipur, as well as IIT Guwahati.

Atul Bora, director of technical education, Assam, and college principal, said the supercomputer's resources would be available for Jorhat Engineering College, Jorhat Institute of Science and Technology and Bineswar Brahma Engineering College. He said the government has allocated Rs 34 lakh for this purpose.