Meet Kabru, India's second fastest computer

Saturday, 24 April 2004, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
CHENNNAI: Guess who - or what - Kabru is? It is the second fastest India-made supercomputer that has been commissioned at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) here. The institute said Kabru is the second fastest computer that any Indian research organisation has - and it has been developed at a relatively cheap cost. The fastest computer in India is a 574-CPU cluster, which is used by Intel Corp at its Bangalore office. "Kabru was developed during research in Lattice Gauge Theory," IMSc director R. Balasubramaniam said. This is a method of calculating properties of fundamental particles such as protons and neutrons. "The most reliable way to do this is through large-scale computations," the institute director said. So a computer was developed to carry out large-scale computations. The team of researchers at IMSc was led by N.D. Hari Dass. The government allotted funds for the project through the department of atomic energy. Kabru has a 288-CPU (144 node) Linux cluster. Hari Dass said his team of scientists did not set out to create a supercomputer but it happened - and "at half the cost" for such computers. "The product far exceeds our expectations," he said. Kabru has taken IMSc to the Teraflop Supercomputer Club league. As of now, IMSc has no commercial use plan for Kabru.
Source: IANS