Tata supercomputer

A supercomputer at Poona’s Computational Research Laboratories (a Tata subsidiary) has been ranked the fourth fastest in the world and the fastest in Asia. The list released at an international conference on high performing computers at Nevada, US in November 2007 places two US and a German supercomputer above the Tata one. This is the first time India has figured in the top 100, let alone the top 10 of the supercomputing list, notes The Times of India, November 14.

Managing to achieve a speed of 117.9 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second), Tatas’ supercomputer named Eka (Sanskrit for ‘one’) was developed at a cost of $ 30 million. It is the first to be made totally by a corporation, without any government help, reports The Economic Times, November 14. A Hewlett-Packard Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c system, the Tata supercomputer will probably be put into commercial use in a few months’ time, as per newspaper reports. "The Tata Group has supported this development activity and is extremely proud of the team that has developed and built this supercomputer,” chairman Ratan Tata told newsmen.