Latest news with #Cray
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
How this 78-year-old created India's first supercomputer despite blocks from the US and Europe
Image credits: X/@OnlyNakedTruth While the West may be technologically ahead of the rest of the world, India has never been far behind. We have either learned and used existing technologies or created new ones. Supercomputers, which are exceptionally powerful computers designed to perform complex calculations and process large amounts of data at high speeds, were invented in America in the 1960s when Seymour Cray, the father of supercomputing, designed a series of computers at Control Data Corporation (CDC). The technology had spread far and wide in the developed countries in the following years. However, in the 1980s, when India asked for access to supercomputers, we were denied by the US and Europe with claims such as India would use the technology for missiles and it was not 'ready' for supercomputers as it was a developing nation. Without the supercomputers, the satellites would be blindfolded, and we would not be able to progress in technology. Image credits: X/@sreejithsoji The solution for the problem came in the form of Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar, a scientist who took charge of making India's own supercomputer that was faster, cheaper and its own. In 1990, Bhatkar, appointed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, created a team of scientists, engineers and coders in Pune who were tasked with creating a supercomputer, a device that functioned like 256 brains working as one. The process went on for three years with zero foreign help in a lab in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing , which was set up in 1988. In 1991, India debuted PARAM 8000 , a supercomputer that cost a fraction of the USA's Cray supercomputer and was equipped with 64 CPUs, used Inmos T800 transputers and had distributed memory MIMD architecture with a reconfigurable interconnection network. It predicted cyclones, cracked cancer data, decoded black holes and more. Its efficiency was so high that the USA had to slash back the prices of Cray to ensure sales, and it was so in demand that it was being exported to Germany, the UK and Russia. Image credits: X/@knowlajay Bhatkar, the mind behind the achievement, who is currently the Chancellor of Nalanda University, was awarded the Padma Shri & Padma Bhushan and the Maharashtra Bhushan Award. Now, the Indian government is working towards doing better in the field of supercomputing by initiating a 4,500-crore National Supercomputing Mission . This mission targets the installation of more than 70 high-performance computing facilities in India.
BBC News
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Race Across the World a huge culture shock'
A young couple from Carmarthenshire have swapped small-village life for a global Gough and Sioned Cray, from Nantgaredig, are the youngest of five pairs competing in the fifth series of BBC One's Race Across the World, which starts on Wednesday night. "It was a really good challenge to push ourselves into the deep end," Ms Cray told Radio Wales Breakfast. The show will begin at the Great Wall of China, and will see teams racing 8,700 miles (14,000km) through China, Nepal, and India using only the cash equivalent of airfare, without flights or smartphones, for a £20,000 prize. Despite being together for five years, Ms Cray said they had "never really done anything outside of this little relationship in Wales".She initially applied for Race Across the World after her mum suggested doing it with her brother, but she did not think that was a good idea - so she asked Fin Gough, who had never watched the show before, found out they had been selected while in the shower."I ran downstairs in a towel to answer the call - they said we were in, and I couldn't believe it," he said."You apply for something and just hope for the best but we didn't actually think we'd get on but here we are, we've done it and it was incredible."Ms Cray said the whole experience was "so nerve-racking but also so exciting," and still felt surreal. The pair were just 18 and 19 when they took on the challenge, which was filmed in October 2024, and Tenerife in the Canary Islands was the furthest they had ever travelled Gough said: "We'd never been outside of Europe together."So to then go somewhere like China, where the language and culture are completely different - it was just us, relying on each other for the first time."Ms Cray described the experience as a "huge culture shock", admitting the early days were filled with bickering as they adjusted to the intense demands of the said it was an opportunity to learn more about each other, and learned "Finn needs space while she prefers to talk things through"."We were a bit naive going in - it was so much harder than we imagined, mentally, physically, emotionally," she the struggles, Ms Cray called it a "unique experience" and "something special" they now share."Not many people get this kind of opportunity, so we knew we had to take it, hold onto it, and really cherish it," she said. Series five of Race Across the World begins on BBC One at 21:00 BST on Wednesday 23 April.
