18°33′06″N 73°49′26″E / 18.551747°N 73.823750°E / 18.551747; 73.823750

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing

Motto	ज्ञानादेव तु कैवल्यम् (Sanskrit) Only through knowledge one attains liberation (English translated)
Established	1988; 31 years ago
Field of research	High Performance Computing, Multi-lingual Computing and Heritage Computing, Professional Electronics, Software Technologies, Cyber Security, Blockchain, Data Science, Health Informatics
Director	Magesh Ethirajan,[1] Director General
Address	Pune University Campus, Ganesh Khind, Pune - 411 007, Maharashtra, India
Location	Pune, India (headquarters)
Nickname	C-DAC
Operating agency	Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India
Website	www.cdac.in

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is an Indian autonomous scientific society, operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.^[2]

History

C-DAC was created in November 1987,^[3] initially as the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Technology (C-DACT).^[4][3] In 1988, the US Government refused to sell India a Cray supercomputer due to concerns about India using it to develop nuclear weapons.^[5] In response India started development of its own supercomputer, and C-DACT was created as part of this programme.^[6][7]

Dr Vijay Bhatkar was hired as the director of C-DACT.^[7] The project was given an initial run of three years and an initial funding of ₹30,00,00,000, the cost of a Cray supercomputer.^[7]

A prototype computer was benchmarked at the 1990 Zurich Super-computing Show. It demonstrated that India had the second most powerful, publicly demonstrated, supercomputer in the world after the United States.^[7][8]

The final result of the effort was the PARAM 8000, released in 1991.^[9]

The National Centre for Software Technology, Electronic Research and Development Centre and CEDTI were merged into C-DAC in 2003.^[10][11]

Research activities

Originally established to research and assemble High Performance Computers, the research of C-DAC now includes:

Centres

C-DAC branches and training centres include:^[12]

Education and training

C-DAC provides several courses in the field of advanced computing and software development. Among these are the HPC certification course- C-DAC Certified HPC Professional Certification Programme (CCHPCP).^[13] C-DAC organises advanced computing diploma programmes through the Advanced Computing Training School (ACTS) located all over India.^[14] The PG Diploma courses include

• Specialisations in Embedded System Design,
• VLSI,
• Big Data Analytics,
• Geoinformatics,
• Artificial Intelligence

C-DAC has also established Centres of Excellence in Information Technology (CEIT) abroad under the Ministry of External Affairs' s development partnership projects.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Products and developments

• PARAM series of supercomputers^[19]
• VEGA Microprocessors, India's first indigenous 64-bit Multi-core Superscalar Out-of-Order RISC-V Processor^[20]
• M-Kavach 2, an android-based mobile device security solution addressing emerging threats.^[21]
• Mobile Seva AppStore, a mobile app marketplace^[22]
• Bharat Operating System Solutions, a Linux-based general purpose operating system^[23]
• Anvaya, a workflow environment for automated genome analysis.^[24]
• Namescape, the search engine for the Aadhaar unique-ID project.^[25]
• GARUDA, India's National Grid Computing Initiative^[26][27]
• TaxoGrid, a grid-based molecular phylogenetics and drug discovery system^[28]
• GIST, Graphics and Intelligence based Script Technology^[29]
• DARPAN, a real time network monitoring, visualization and Service Level Agreement monitoring tool.^[30]
• OLabs, an internet based platform for conduct of school laboratory experiments and assessment.^[31]
• Punarjjani, a web based integrated assessment tool for mentally challenged children.^[32]
• Shrutlekhan-Rajbhasha, a Hindi language speech recognition software application developed by C-DAC in collaboration with IBM^[33]
• eSanjeevani, a digital modality of healthcare service delivery.^[34]
• e-Pramaan, a national e-Authentication framework for accessing various government services.^[35][36]
• QSim, India's first Quantum Computer Simulator Toolkit in collaboration with IISc Bengaluru and IIT Roorkee.^[37]
• CerviSCAN, a Cervical Cancer screening device suite^[38]
• The Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition (ASTR) powered solution for Telecom SIM subscriber verification.^[39][40]

Notable researchers and alumnus

• Vijay P. Bhatkar, founding director, recipient of Padma Bhushan award^[41]
• Rajat Moona, Director IIT Gandhinagar, former director C-DAC.^[42]
• Rajkumar Buyya, professor at Melbourne University, formerly worked as a Senior Scientist at C-DAC Bangalore^[43]
• Srinivasan Ramani, contributed in bringing the internet to India in 1987 through the academic network ERNET,^[44][45] served as an adviser on UN ICT Task Force, and was the first director of HP Labs, India^[46]
• Sudhir P. Mudur, former director of C-DAC, current head of Computer Science Department, Concordia University.^[47]
• T M Vijayaraman, head of Persistent Systems's research, formerly worked at C-DAC Mumbai.^[48]
• Geetha Manjunath, founder & CEO of NIRAMAI.^[49]
• P Sadanandan, former director of NCSDT (now C-DAC Mumbai).^[44]

Notable awards and accolades

• Manthan Award 2013 for Mobile Tele-Ophthalmology Units,^[50] e-safeT,^[51] ONAMA.^[52]
• Manthan Award 2012 for Interactive Museum,^[53] Megh Sushrut,^[54] National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway.^[55]
• National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, 2012^[56]
• Skoch Digital Inclusion Award, 2011^[57]

Other projects

• e-mahashabdkosh

See also

• Supercomputing in India

References