National Supercomputing Mission Reaches 40 Systems, 68 PF

The correct answer is 2015. India started the National Supercomputing Mission in April 2015 to build up the country's computing strength, and it was given an outlay of roughly Rs 4,500 crore. The Mission is steered jointly by the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, while the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Pune and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru put it into practice. Option A, 2010, is wrong because nothing of this Mission existed then; India's indigenous supercomputing story had begun much earlier with PARAM 8000 in 1991, but that was a single machine and not a national mission. Option C, 2018, is wrong: by that time the Mission was already working towards its goal of self-reliance in supercomputing. Option D, 2022, is wrong as well, since the figures reported for the Mission, such as 40 supercomputers delivering 68 PF as of September 2026, describe several years of work that followed the 2015 launch.

The correct answer is 68 PF. By September 2026 India had 40 supercomputers in service, all built within the country, and their capacity added up to 68 PF. That total is made up of 13 high-end machines faster than 1 PF, 12 mid-range systems placed between 500 TF and 1 PF, and 15 systems below 500 TF. Options A and B are simply lower than the reported total and match no stated figure for the Mission. Option D is the trap, because 123 PF is a real number in this story but it belongs to the future, not the present: the Mission plans a total of 50 supercomputers with a cumulative capacity exceeding 123 PF across academic and research institutions, so 123 PF is the target rather than the capacity already deployed. Remember the pair together: 40 systems at 68 PF achieved, 50 systems above 123 PF planned.

The correct answer is C-DAC, Pune and IISc, Bengaluru. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing at Pune and the Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru are the two bodies that implement the Mission, while the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology steer it. C-DAC is also the house that built PARAM 8000 in 1991 and has designed the Rudra series of servers on which the PARAM Rudra supercomputers run. Option A is wrong: neither space nor defence research laboratories are named as implementing agencies for this Mission. Option C is wrong because no individual IIT or atomic research centre has that role, even though research institutions across the country use the Mission's machines. Option D mixes in a genuine name from the story in a wrong place, as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research organises the ESTIC-2026 conclave but does not implement the supercomputing Mission.

The correct answer is 1991. PARAM 8000 was developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and unveiled in 1991 with a speed of 1 gigaflop, and it marked India's entry into indigenous supercomputing. It laid the base for the PARAM series, which moved on to far more powerful machines such as PARAM Yuva at 54 teraflops, supporting work like weather forecasting and computational fluid dynamics, and later to the PARAM Rudra systems built on Rudra servers designed in India. Option A, 1985, comes before the machine existed. Option C, 1998, and option D, 2005, fall after the unveiling; by then the PARAM line was already growing through newer and faster systems. A useful way to hold the timeline is PARAM 8000 in the early 1990s, the national mission from 2015, and 40 machines at 68 PF by September 2026.