The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched ‘PARAM SHAKTI’, a supercomputing facility hosting the indigenous PARAM RUDRA system, at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). The facility was inaugurated by MeitY Secretary Shri S. Krishnan on January 3, 2026, according to an official statement.
The system has been developed and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), which is jointly led by MeitY and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
PARAM SHAKTI is powered by the PARAM RUDRA supercomputing cluster, built using C-DAC’s indigenous RUDRA series of servers. The system delivers a peak computing capacity of 3.1 petaflops, meaning it can perform over 3.1 quadrillion calculations per second. According to an official statement, the facility has been fully developed and manufactured in India and runs on open-source software, including AlmaLinux and an indigenously developed system software stack by C-DAC.
The facility also includes integrated infrastructure for uninterrupted power supply, advanced cooling systems, and data centre operations to support continuous high-performance computing workloads.
According to the institute, the availability of this level of computing power is expected to support research across multiple disciplines, including aerospace engineering, materials science, climate modelling, combustion studies, molecular dynamics, nuclear sciences, and drug discovery. The system enables large-scale simulations that reduce dependence on prolonged experimental trials and accelerate research timelines.
Faculty and researchers at IIT Madras are currently using the facility for simulations spanning multiple length and time scales, ranging from electronic structure calculations at the sub-atomic level to large-scale structural and system-level analyses, according to an official statement.
IIT Madras has been selected as the host institution for PARAM SHAKTI under the NSM framework. Addressing students and researchers during the inauguration, MeitY Secretary Shri S. Krishnan noted the increasing interdisciplinary use of high-performance computing at the institute and noted that researchers from multiple departments are expected to utilise the facility for domain-specific applications.
He also referred to the broader rollout of supercomputing infrastructure under the National Supercomputing Mission, which has already seen the installation of 37 systems across institutions nationwide, with additional systems planned.
According to MeitY, PARAM SHAKTI aligns with the objectives of the IndiaAI Mission, which aims to support diverse computing architectures rather than relying on a single technology or hardware platform. The approach is intended to provide researchers with exposure to multiple GPU architectures and strengthen long-term resilience in the country’s computing ecosystem.
Shri Krishnan noted that application-driven projects under NSM are supported with dedicated funding to ensure that large-scale computing resources are effectively used for research and innovation, according to an official statement.
Curated by James Chen
