PM Modi Inaugurates advanced high-performance computing systems for weather, climate research

New Delhi, Sep 27: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a state-of-the-art High-Performance Computing (HPC) system designed to enhance India’s weather and climate research capabilities. The HPC system, acquired by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, represents a significant investment of `850 crore and is expected to greatly improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, particularly for extreme events.

The new system is located at two key research centres: the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in Noida. The IITM facility boasts a capacity of 11.77 petaflops and 33 petabytes of storage, while the NCMRWF system features 8.24 petaflops and 24 petabytes of storage. Additionally, a standalone unit for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications with 1.9 petaflops of power has also been installed.

With this upgrade, India’s total computational power for weather research will rise to 22 petaflops, a sharp increase from the previous 6.8 petaflops. These new systems have been named ‘Arka’ and ‘Arunika’ after celestial entities connected to the sun, following the tradition of naming past systems such as Aditya, Bhaskara, Pratyush, and Mihir.

The enhanced computing power will allow for the development of more advanced models using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, improving weather predictions and last-mile services for stakeholders.

It will also enable the Ministry of Earth Sciences to boost data assimilation and refine the physics and dynamics of its global weather models, allowing regional predictions to be made with finer resolutions of up to 1 km or less in selected areas.

These high-resolution models are expected to significantly enhance the accuracy and lead time of forecasts for extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, hailstorms, heatwaves, and droughts. The improved capabilities will strengthen India’s preparedness and response to the increasing challenges posed by climate variability and extreme weather.