The Delay in Delivery: Kiren Rijiju Upset with French IT Company Atos

The Earth Sciences Minister, Kiren Rijiju, is reportedly disappointed with the French IT company Atos for delaying the delivery of two supercomputers to Indian weather forecasting institutes. The Earth Sciences Ministry had placed an order for two supercomputers worth $100 million from French firm Eviden, a part of the Atos Group, last year to enhance the computing capabilities of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM).

In a video interview with PTI, Rijiju expressed his disappointment, saying, “I am more upset because the target we set was December. The Union Cabinet had already approved purchasing the supercomputer. We have only four petaflop capacity. We want to install up to 18 petaflop capacity.”

He revealed that the delay was due to some financial issues faced by the French company, which requested the government to make payments to its subsidiary. Rijiju emphasized that the delay was causing him a lot of worry as the company had exceeded the timeline.

While the government is ready to release the payment to expedite the delivery, Rijiju highlighted the importance of ensuring a legally correct transaction. He mentioned that the French government’s intervention was also expected due to the good relationship between the two countries.

The supercomputing system, based on Eviden’s BullSequana XH2000, is expected to have a combined power capacity of up to 21.3 petaflops. The supercomputer at IITM in Pune will provide 13 petaflops of computing power for atmosphere and climate research, integrating advanced technologies for efficient performance.

Despite the delays, Rijiju remains optimistic about resolving the issues soon and getting the much-needed supercomputers in place to enhance weather forecasting capabilities in India.