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In a groundbreaking step towards enhancing India’s meteorological capabilities, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated a cutting-edge High-Performance Computing (HPC) system dedicated to weather and climate research, an initiative backed by an ₹850 crore investment from the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The new system aims to significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of weather forecasting, especially during extreme climatic events.

The HPC systems are strategically located at two vital centers: the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in Noida. The IITM facility boasts a formidable capacity of 11.77 Peta FLOPS and 33 petabytes of storage, while NCMRWF features 8.24 Peta FLOPS and 24 petabytes of storage. Additionally, a standalone system dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications has been established, offering 1.9 Peta FLOPS of computational power.

With this development, the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ total computing power will soar to 22 Peta FLOPS, a remarkable increase from its previous capacity of 6.8 Peta FLOPS. This leap in computational capability is expected to refine existing data assimilation processes and enhance the physics and dynamics of global weather prediction models, achieving higher resolutions in forecasting.

Continuing a tradition of naming systems after celestial entities associated with the sun, the new HPC systems have been aptly named 'Arka' and 'Arunika,' following the previous systems known as Aditya, Bhaskara, Pratyush, and Mihir.

"The introduction of these state-of-the-art HPC systems will enable the Ministry to leverage advanced technologies, including AI and Machine Learning, to create sophisticated models that significantly enhance the services provided to various stakeholders," said Prime Minister Modi during the inauguration.