Simorgh Supercomputer

Iran recently launched its supercomputer called Simorgh. This supercomputer is hundred times more powerful than the previous Iranian supercomputers.

About the Simorgh Supercomputer

• The Supercomputer has been named after the phoenix like bird called the Simurgh.
• The Simorgh Supercomputer was developed by the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

It is located at the Iranian High Performance Computing Research Centre.

Capacity

• The performance capacity of the simorgh Supercomputer is 0.56 petaflops. It is to reach 1 petaflops in two months. In its subsequent levels it is to reach to speed of 10 petaflops.
• It comprises of 42 racks in an area of 250 square metres. In future this is to be upgraded to 400 square metres.
• The total budget of the supercomputer is expected to be 9 million USD.

Applications

• The Supercomputer is to be used for image processing, artificial intelligence work load, traffic and weather data.
• It will also be used for cloud hosting local private firms.

What is the spotlight?

The US had imposed sanctions on Iran and the doors of business is completely closed to the country. The US had imposed anti terrorism trade sanctions and has been trying to slow down its nuclear programme for decades. Thus, Iran should have got the US chips used in supercomputers illegally.

Iran never discloses its hardware specifications.

In 2001, the Amirkabir university developed a 32-node PC based on Intel Pentium processors. Again in 2007, the country had its hands on 216 AMD cores which in turn led to the most powerful supercomputer of all time.

Iran is using bitcoin mining facilities to buy required raw materials from US and other countries. Most of these are illegal under the sanctions imposed against the country.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2021