India’s supercomputing capabilities are about see a significant boost as the government announced its plan to upgrade the Param Siddhi high-performance computing (HPC) supercomputer with cutting-edge NVIDIA H100 GPUs.

The Param Siddhi, part of the Param Siddhi-Airawat AI (PSAI) supercomputer system, is currently powered by NVIDIA A100 GPUs. The planned upgrade will incorporate 8 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, along with additional nodes, substantially increasing the system’s processing power and efficiency. 

Significance of the Upgrade

The upgrade from Nvidia A100 to H100 GPUs represents a substantial leap in Param Siddhi’s capabilities:

1. AI Performance Boost: The H100 offers up to 9x faster AI training and 30x faster AI inference compared to the A100, particularly for large language models. 
2. Enhanced Scientific Simulations: Researchers can expect to run more complex and accurate simulations in fields like climate modeling and astrophysics, potentially leading to faster scientific breakthroughs.
3. Energy Efficiency: Despite its higher performance, the H100 provides better performance per watt, allowing Param Siddhi to achieve greater computational output with improved energy efficiency.
4. Advanced Features: New capabilities like the Transformer Engine, which uses FP8 and FP16 precisions, will enhance AI training and inference, especially for large language models.

Last year, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA and Narendra Modi, PM of India had a discussion on rich potential India presents in the field of AI. The upgrade also aligns with India’s broader AI strategy, which includes plans to procure 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) within the next 18 months, as announced a few months ago.

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