Think about the last time you checked the weather on your phone, watched a satellite image of a cyclone, or used a computer to solve a complicated problem. Behind many such tasks is a machine capable of processing enormous amounts of information in seconds.
That is the world of supercomputers. Unlike ordinary computers, which typically handle tasks one after another or in limited parallel operations, supercomputers can divide complex problems into smaller parts and work on them simultaneously, using thousands of processing operations together.
But what happens when a country needs this technology and cannot get its hands on it?
In the late 1980s, India faced precisely this challenge. The answer came from a team of Indian scientists led by Vijay Bhatkar, who helped build PARAM, the country’s first indigenous supercomputer.
When India was denied a supercomputer
In the 1980s, supercomputers were essential for scientific research, weather forecasting, defence and space exploration. India needed this computing power, particularly to improve weather predictions that could help farmers prepare for changing conditions.
The country sought to acquire a Cray supercomputer from the United States. However, the technology was considered strategically sensitive because of its potential military applications, and access was restricted.
Unveiled in 1991, PARAM 8000 achieved a peak performance of one billion floating-point operations per second. Photograph: (Wikipedia)
Rather than remain dependent on foreign technology, India decided to develop its own.
In 1987, the government entrusted Vijay Bhatkar, an electronics and computer scientist, with leading this ambitious effort. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) was established in Pune in 1988 to take the mission forward.
The challenge was enormous. India had limited access to the technology, software and specialised expertise required to build a machine of this scale. The team would have to develop the necessary capabilities at home.
How Vijay Bhatkar and his team built PARAM
Bhatkar and his colleagues took a different approach from simply trying to reproduce an imported machine. They worked towards developing an indigenous supercomputing system that could deliver powerful computing performance using available resources.
One of the key ideas behind PARAM was parallel processing.
Imagine a difficult mathematical problem that would take one person hours to solve. Instead of asking one person to do everything, you divide the problem into smaller tasks and give them to several people to work on at the same time. Once they finish, their answers are combined.
Parallel processing enables supercomputers to solve complex problems by working on multiple tasks simultaneously. Photograph: (Indian Defense News)
Parallel processing applies a similar principle to computing. Multiple processors work on different parts of a problem simultaneously, allowing the system to complete certain calculations far faster than a conventional computer.
Building such a system involves more than connecting processors. They must communicate efficiently, coordinate their work, share data and run software designed to handle complex calculations.
C-DAC’s team worked on the hardware and software needed to make this approach function as a complete system. The result was a supercomputer developed around India’s own technological capabilities, rather than one dependent entirely on an imported machine.
The Indian supercomputer capable of a billion calculations a second
The first prototype was ready in 1990. The following year, C-DAC unveiled PARAM 8000, with a reported peak performance of one gigaflop, or one billion floating-point operations per second.
To put that figure into perspective, a floating-point operation is a mathematical calculation involving numbers that can have decimal values. Performing a billion such operations per second gives scientists the computing power needed for demanding simulations and numerical modelling.
Supercomputers support weather forecasting, climate research and complex engineering simulations. Photograph: (Facebook/@Unique Music World)
PARAM 8000 was built using a parallel-processing architecture. Its performance demonstrated that India could develop its own high-performance computing technology despite the restrictions it had faced.
The name PARAM comes from the Sanskrit word for ‘supreme’. Its arrival marked a turning point in India’s scientific computing journey, with C-DAC going on to develop successive generations of PARAM systems.
From weather forecasting to climate research: Where PARAM’s legacy lives on
PARAM was not the end of the journey. It was the beginning of a broader effort to strengthen India’s capabilities in advanced computing.
Over the years, successive PARAM systems have supported research in areas such as weather forecasting, engineering simulations, climate studies and other computationally intensive fields. More recently, India’s supercomputing efforts have expanded through initiatives such as the National Supercomputing Mission, which aims to build computing infrastructure and develop indigenous hardware and software.
PARAM 8000 laid the foundation for India’s growing capabilities in indigenous supercomputing. Photograph: (Bharat Gaur)
The story of PARAM is not simply about building a faster computer. It is about what becomes possible when scientists are challenged to find solutions despite technological barriers.
When India could not readily access the supercomputer it needed, Vijay Bhatkar and his team helped demonstrate that the country could build one of its own. In doing so, they laid important foundations for the advanced computing capabilities that Indian researchers continue to develop today.
This story is part of “India Invented This?” — The Better India’s weekly trivia series that uncovers the Indian minds, ideas and innovations behind inventions that have shaped the way we live. From ingenious solutions created by scientists and engineers to technologies developed in response to some of India’s biggest challenges, each story goes beyond the invention to explore the problem it solved, the impact it created and why it still matters today.
