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Tata Sons’ subsidiary, CRL, is pioneering a new revolution in the country, by offering its massive processing power on its supercomputer, Eka, on rent to enterprises in India
 Nearly one and a half years after making a stunning entry into the global supercomputer list with Eka, ranked as the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world, Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), a Tata Sons’ subsidiary, has succeeded in creating a new market for supercomputers – that of offering supercomputing power on rent to enterprises in India. For now, for want of a better word, let us call it ‘Supercomputer as a Service.’
With more than 40 organizations in India hiring its services, CRL has made a mark in a field where only a few organizations have dared to venture. In a period of recession, Eka has opened up new possibilities for industries that require the massive crunching power of supercomputers, but only during certain times of their product development lifecycle.
For example, Tata Elxsi used Eka’s processing power to crunch the time required for rendering the animation movie, ‘Roadside Romeo.’ The activity, which would have taken the firm approximately 36-40 months to digitally render the movie in a studio, took only six months, due to the computing power of Eka. It is also significant to note that the firm achieved this feat using only one-third of the processing power of Eka.
Similarly, leading aerospace company, Boeing, is using Eka’s capability to bring its ideas faster to the market, by offering design and simulation support. Group company, Tata Motors, is using Eka for vehicle simulation and testing digital prototypes. CRL is also looking at potential opportunities in sectors such as Life Science, weather forecasting, animation and in the automotive and aviation industries. This is just a glimpse of the processing power.
Speaking with Seetha Rama Krishna, Head, HPC Engineering and Operations, CRL, one can gauge the ambitious goals of this small company. “‘Supercomputing made easy’ is our goal,” declares Seetha Rama Krishna, while elaborating on his firm’s vision to take supercomputers down to the retail level.
CRL’s initiative is a pioneering effort, as it is the first time that a corporate institution is taking the lead in extending the domain of High Performance Computing (HPC) from the academic field, to the enterprise. This is partly because a large-scale supercomputing infrastructure has been typically owned by government institutions, and is not largely used to its full potential. Being research focused, these institutions have little inclination or capability to deliver it as a utility service.
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