Centre May Allocate INR 10,000 Cr For Building Supercomputing, Quantum Computing Hubs

The government is likely looking to allocate up to INR 10,000 Cr for setting up supercomputing and quantum computing hubs in partnership with private players under public-private ties, ET reported, citing officials close to the matter.

A government official said that an announcement regarding the same is expected to be made during the Global Artificial Intelligence Summit and Awards, slated for January 18 and 19.

According to another senior official, the proposed hubs will offer access to high-performance computing to startups, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and other companies, either on lease or on a “compute-as-a-service” basis.

“The idea is to add up to 30,000 GPUs (graphic processing units) overall in a somewhat DPI (digital public infrastructure) model,” the official said.

As per ET, initially, the quantum computing hubs will be established within higher education academic institutions and prominent government research and development centres, as stated by the official. 

Overall, it may take up to 10 years to develop the total computing strength,” the person added.

Apart from the announcement on offering of compute capacity as a service, the government may also announce the adoption of most of the proposals of seven working groups on AI, a senior MeitY official told ET.

In October 2023, there were reports that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was contemplating a proposal to establish a cluster of 25,000 GPUs through public-private partnerships. 

This initiative aims to provide accessibility to Indian companies engaged in artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies that demand substantial computing capacity.

Further, in October 2023, MeitY signed three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with tech giant IBM to expedite innovation in areas such as AI, semiconductor, and quantum technology.

IBM inked the MoUs with three distinct entities of the ministry – Digital India, India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

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