India's Earth Sciences Minister Rijiju Irked by Atos' Supercomputer Delivery Setback: Report

Kiren Rijiju, the Earth Sciences Minister, has voiced his frustration with Atos, a French IT company, due to significant delays in the delivery of two crucial supercomputers to Indian weather forecasting institutions.

Last year, the Earth Sciences Ministry placed an order with Eviden, a subsidiary of the Atos Group, for two supercomputers valued at $100 million. The aim was to bolster the computing capabilities of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM).

Rijiju expressed his disappointment, stating, "I am more upset because the target we set was December. The Union Cabinet had already approved purchasing the supercomputer. We have only four petaflop capacity. We want to install up to 18 petaflop capacity."

He further elaborated that the French company encountered financial difficulties and requested the government to make payments to its subsidiary.

The minister emphasized that the delay is causing him considerable "worry" as the company has exceeded the agreed-upon timeline. "But I think we will sort it out soon," he added, while also highlighting the government's commitment to maintaining a "very correct in our position legally."

"We are ready to release the money because we want the machine immediately. The only problem is the amount is not small. So if we pay now, if the company is bankrupt or something happens, who will bail out?" the minister questioned.

Rijiju mentioned that the government is actively taking steps to expedite the delivery of the supercomputer but refrained from providing specific details. He expressed hope that the French government would intervene, citing the strong relationship between the two countries.

"Since it is a high-cost equipment, we want to ensure that the transaction happens duly and properly," he stated.

He clarified the payment issue, saying, "From outside, everything's ready. It is only the problem with the main company. They want us to pay their subsidiary. We will pay only to a company whom we have entered an MoU with."

The supercomputing system, built on Eviden's BullSequana XH2000, is expected to deliver a combined power capacity of up to 21.3 petaflops.

The supercomputer destined for IITM in Pune is designed to provide 13 petaflops of computing power specifically for research in atmosphere and climate. According to the PTI report, it will feature 3,000 CPU nodes powered by AMD EPYC 7643 processors, alongside 26 GPU nodes utilizing NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs. The system will also incorporate the NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networking platform with In-Network Computing, 3PB all flash and 29PB disk-based DDN EXAScaler ES400NVX2 storage, and Micron high-technology memory.

Currently, the computing facility at NCMRWF stands at 2.8 petaflops, while IITM has a capacity of 4 petaflops.