Param Shakti Supercomputing System Launched In IIT Madras

CHENNAI: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S. Krishnan launched ‘Param Shakti’, an indigenously developed and manufactured '3.1 Petaflop PARAM RUDRA supercomputing system', at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) on January 3.

Under National Supercomputing Mission, Param Shakti houses the Param Rudra supercomputing cluster along with an integrated infrastructure for round-the-clock power, advanced cooling and data centre operations. Designed, developed and implemented by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the system has been funded under the National Supercomputing Mission, jointly led by MeitY and Department of Science and Technology (DST).

Addressing the students, S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY, said, "I have had a long association with IIT Madras, including in my earlier roles, and I have seen first-hand how truly interdisciplinary the Institute has become. It is encouraging to see faculty and researchers from diverse departments coming together to use this facility and contribute meaningfully in their respective domains."

S. Krishnan added, "Under the National Supercomputing Mission, we are supporting a wide range of use cases and application-driven projects with dedicated funding, designed to operate at a scale that can make a real difference. With 37 supercomputers already installed across institutions nationwide and more in the pipeline, including the largest system planned for Bengaluru, these efforts are strengthening India’s research and innovation ecosystem."

Further, S. Krishnan said, "Under the IndiaAI Mission, we have been deliberate in not promoting a single technology or a single type of GPU. By enabling access to multiple GPU architectures, we want our innovators, scientists and researchers to gain broad exposure and develop the capability to master diverse platforms. This approach strengthens resilience, encourages informed technology choices and ensures that India’s AI ecosystem does not become dependent on any one solution, even within this rapidly evolving domain."

Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, explained various ways MeitY was driving the growth of computing technology and the digital revolution in the country over the decades. The National Knowledge Network that powers the connectivity of all Centrally-funded academic institutions is one such initiative.

Prof. V. Kamakoti urged the students to develop program codes that are energy efficient, allow for the sharing of GPU resources effectively and are safe from memory leaks. He listed various technologies that need to become indigenous to allow for the realization of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Addressing the inaguration event last week, Shri E. Magesh, Director General, C-DAC, traced C-DAC’s journey in developing the Rudra platform and encouraged researchers to increasingly adopt indigenous high-performance computing systems.

Prof. Phanikumar, Chairman, Computer Centre, IIT Madras, highlighted ‘MicroSim’ — a multi-GPU solver suite for microstructure evolution developed with NSM support — which has been made open source and is among the fastest in its category worldwide.

Operational since May 2025, the Param Shakti facility has already achieved over 80 per cent utilisation, reflecting strong demand from researchers. With a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ranging between 1.2 and 1.4, the facility also demonstrates high standards in energy-efficient infrastructure integration. Researchers at IIT Madras are currently using the system across multiple length and time scales — from sub-atomic electronic structure calculations to large-scale structural and system-level simulations.

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