As part of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), the Telangana government is asking the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to set up a supercomputing facility with a 20 petaflop capacity in Hyderabad's projected Artificial Intelligence (AI) metropolis.

Supercomputer performance is measured in petaflops, which are units of one quadrillion (or 20,000 trillion) floating point operations per second. The NSM plans to build and operate 24 supercomputers with a total power of more than 64 petaflops throughout India.

Telangana's IT secretary, Jayesh Ranjan, said, "We have asked MeitY to set up this facility in Hyderabad's AI city. We are willing to donate the land required for this use. The amount of processing capacity available directly affects how far AI can advance. The Development Center of Advanced Computing (CDAC), a body under MeitY, has expressed interest in the project.

With a total capacity of more than 20 petaflops, CDAC has already deployed 11 systems under the first two stages of NSM at a number of institutions, including IISc, IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali, and CDAC itself. Magesh Ethirajan, the director general of CDAC, was not available for comment.

Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM) and CDAC inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in April of last year to give 142 AI entrepreneurs backed by T-AIM's Revv Up accelerator program access to reasonably priced high-performance AI computing. For a brief while, these businesses may utilize free access to India's most potent AI supercomputing facility, which offers 410 AI petaflops. These capabilities are available to startups for around one-third the price of private cloud services.

In line with the IndiaAI Mission, Ranjan stressed that Telangana's IT ministry will formally ask the union IT ministry for assistance in establishing the AI city. He said, "We will be meeting with ministers from the Government of India in Delhi to discuss this plan."

About 30 to 50 percent of the 200 acres that make up the proposed AI city would be left aside for businesses to establish AI centers. The remaining acreage will be developed into commercial spaces and computing facilities, which will be rented out to AI-focused businesses in exchange for internet, electricity, and rent subsidies.

Talks on establishing data centers in the AI city have also started with private businesses like Yotta, a data center service provider affiliated with the Hiranandani Group, and Intel, which runs more than 100,000 servers worldwide. Ranjan clarified, "We will permit them to set up their data centers for AI computing, including hosting graphics processing units (GPUs). "An R&D and incubation facility for agencies interested in AI research, development, and innovation is something else we plan to set up."

The AI city will also have a skilling center that will offer training for fundamental AI activities like data purification and annotation, as well as PhD-level education in AI. "Our goal is to create an all-encompassing environment for the advancement of AI," stated Ranjan.