INDUSTRY

In India, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) is all set to launch a new supercomputer with dedicated applications for bioinformatics in the next six months. “The blueprint for the new supercomputer has been finalised. The machine would have a computing capacity of 1.5 terraflops and would be integrated with the genome grid that is in currently in progress,” said Rajendra Joshi, coordinator, bioinformatics group, C-DAC. “This is part of C-DAC’s efforts to become a one stop solution for researchers and industry. The objective is to work on projects with real industry applications and the genome grid is the first step towards it,” he said. The genome grid would be integrated with C-DAC’s Garuda grid that connects 17 cities in India. “The grid for biofinformatics provides computational capacity for handling enormous data for genome analysis, complex algorithms for molecular simulation. In the first phase, we have around 40 academic institutes that are connected to the grid. The next phase would involve the industry. The genome grid would be ready by December this year,” Joshi said. Besides developing infrastructure to enable grid computing for bioinformatics, CDAC has begun to take on projects in outsourced bioinformatics. “A number of companies have approached C-DAC to outsourcing their requirements in bioinformatics. We have already tied up with Jubilant Biosys and Nicholas Piramal for some projects. Pharma companies in India spend little resources on R&D and end up becoming providers of formulations. We want this to change and help them reduce time in new drug discovery,” he said. The TCG Group has approached C-DAC with a proposal to use C-DAC’s grid computing and HPC for its BT Park coming up at Pune. Syntel is in talks to help C-DAC for overseas collaborations.