Govt to Offer Grants to 10 to 15 Promising Startups on Quantum Computing

The National Quantum Mission (NQM) in India is actively supporting startups in the field of quantum computing.

The NQM will offer grants to 10 to 15 startups in the next three months. These grants aim to enable startups to grow, scale, and expand globally. This was announced by NQM's board chairman Ajai Chowdhury.

The plan is to set up four independent section 08 companies, each focused on a specific area – computing, communications, sensing, and materials. These companies are expected to take India-developed quantum products to a global audience.

The government is keen on increasing research and development in quantum technologies (QT). Startups working in this field will receive support to advance quantum computing and related technologies.

Funding Range: The grants will range from Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 crore, based on the startup's technology readiness level and other factors.

This initiative aims to accelerate quantum technology development and research, fostering innovation in India's startup ecosystem.

How to Apply

To apply for the National Quantum Mission grants for quantum computing startups in India, follow these steps:

1. Eligibility Check: Ensure your startup meets the eligibility criteria set by the National Quantum Mission. Typically, this includes being a registered Indian company with a focus on quantum technologies.

2. Prepare Documentation:

• Business Plan: Create a detailed business plan that outlines your startup's goals, technology, and market potential.
• Technology Proposal: Describe your quantum computing project, its innovation, and how it aligns with the mission's objectives.
• Financial Projections: Provide financial projections, including how the grant will be utilized.

3. Application Submission:

Keep an eye out for official announcements regarding the application window.
Submit your application through the designated portal or channel specified by the National Quantum Mission.

4. Evaluation and Selection:

Your application will be evaluated based on technical merit, feasibility, and impact.
If shortlisted, you may be invited for an interview or presentation.

5. Grant Utilization:

If approved, utilize the grant for research, development, and scaling up your quantum computing project.

Remember to stay updated on official announcements and guidelines from the National Quantum Mission.

25+ Startups Onboarded to Use National PARAM Supercomputing Facility

Over 25 Startups in AI domain have been onboarded by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), India to leverage AIRAWAT-PSAI High Performance Computing AI GPU Infrastructure.

AIRAWAT is ranked #75 among the World's TOP-500 Supercomputers with 8.50 PFlop/s Linpack Performance in the 1st edition of TOP500 List published at the ISC23 conference on June 01, 2023.

The startups onboarded by C-DAC will get incentives of 1,000 GPU-Hrs credit, mentorship and support from C-DAC AI experts.

AIRAWAT puts India on top of AI Supercomputing nations worldwide. The system is installed under the National Program on AI by the Government of India.

AIRAWAT (AI Research Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform) has been implemented by C-DAC under the initiative of Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India. The Supercomputer has Supercomputing power of 200 AI Petaflops and resides at C-DAC's Pune facility.

The system will act as a common computational cloud platform for Big Data Analytics and Assimilation with a large, power-optimized AI cloud infrastructure connecting all Centres for Research Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (COREs), Indian Centres for Transformational AI (ICTAIs), and other Academic, Research Labs, Scientific Community, Industry, and the Start-Ups institutions with the National Knowledge Network.

C-DAC has designed and commissioned the converged HPC-AI dense GPU infrastructure integrated with the existing PARAM SIDDHI AI system to make the cumulative compute capacity of 410 AI PF (13.17 PF DP). Currently, the system is operational under the aegis of National PARAM Supercomputing Facility (NPSF, C-DAC) at Pune.

National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) has set up to provide the country with supercomputing infrastructure to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups.

India's Total Network of Supercomputers' Performance is Less than Swiss' Single Supercomputer PIZ DAINT

Swiss Supercomputer 'Piz Daint'

Under National Super Computing Mission (NSM), India is fast expanding its supercomputer facilities and developing the capacity to manufacture its own supercomputers in the country.

Infrastructure planned in NSM Phase-I has already been installed and much of Phase-II is already in place, said a release by Ministry of Science & Technology. The ministry said -

the network of supercomputers through the country will soon reach to around 16 Petaflops (PF). Phase-III, to be initiated in January 2021, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops.

Soon the work on Phase-III will start in 2021 and will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20 PF as a national facility.

Besides, with recent announcement of a 100 Artificial Intelligence (AI) PetaFlops supercomputing system, PARAM Siddhi – AI, which is being created and installed in C-DAC by NVIDIA, India is fast expanding its supercomputer facilities and developing the capacity to manufacture its own supercomputers in the country. Yet, comparing to other developed countries India has to still come a long way.

For an instance -- currently the total network of supercomputers across India, which is yet to reach 16 Petaflops (PF), is less than of Piz Daint, a supercomputer in the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, which has performance power of 27.1 Petaflops (PF) [theoretical peak performance] and ranked 10th in TOP500 ranking of supercomputers until June 2020.

Pratyush and Mihir, the two supercomputers of India, ranked in at 67th and 120th spot on the list of TOP500.

The most powerful Supercomputer across the globe is Japan's Fugaku, which has a High Performance Linpack (HPL) result of 415.5 Petaflops (PF). Number.2 on the list is Summit, an IBM-built supercomputer that delivers 148.8 Petaflops on HPL.

India's NSM mission was targeting to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few teraFlops (TF) to Hundreds of teraFlops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 petaFlops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022. It is to be noted that One petaFLOPS is equal 1,000 teraFLOPS.

India's Indigenous Supercomputing Work under NSM 

So FarUnder the NSM, more than 2400 supercomputing manpower and faculties have been trained, till date.




The first supercomputer assembled indigenously -- 'Param Shivay' -- was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by Param Shakti and Param Brahma at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune, respectively.

India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the High-Performance Computing (HPC) requirements of all governments and PSUs. This is the first time that a server system was made in India, along with the full software stack developed by C-DAC.

In addition to these, this system can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times.

India to Get 14 New Supercomputers under ₹ 4,500 Cr Supercomputing Mission

The Department of Science and Technology (DST), a department within the Ministry of Science and Technology in India, has issued a official statement, where it said that 14 new supercomputers will be deployed this year under Rs 4,500 crore-National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

According to the DST statement, by the end of 2020 14 new super-computing systems would be installed at various national-level research laboratories and academic institutions.

The 1st indigenously assembled supercomputer, called Param Shivay, was installed in IIT-BHU and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister last year in February. Similar systems Param Shakti and Param Brahma were installed at IIT-Kharagpur in March last year. This is equipped with applications from domains like Weather and Climate, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Bioinformatics, and Material science.

Three more supercomputers are planned to be installed by April 2020, one each at IIT-Kanpur, JN Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, and IIT-Hyderabad. This will ramp up the supercomputing facility to 6 PF.

Going forward, 11 new systems are likely to be set up in different IITs, NITs, National Labs, and IISERs across India by December this year, which will have many sub-systems manufactured and microprocessors designed in India which will bring in a cumulative capacity of 10.4 petaflops.

Steered jointly by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and DST and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, the NSM mission was targeting to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.

This network of Supercomputers envisaging a total of 15-20 PF was approved in 2015 and was later revised to a total of 45 PF (45000 TFs), a jump of 6 times more compute power within the same cost and capable of solving large and complex computational problems.

To recall, in August 2018 India's first industrial Artificial Intelligence (AI) supercomputer was housed at CEERI's New Delhi campus. The system is a joint effort from Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI) in Delhi and US-based chip-designer NVIDIA Corp.