ISLAMABAD: In an impressive ceremony held here on Tuesday at its Research Centre for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) inaugurated its fastest supercomputing facility.

The ceremony was presided over by Chairman Higher Education Commission Dr Javaid R. Laghari. While highlighting some of the unique features of this state-of-the-art computing facility, recently acquired by NUST through financial grant by Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), Govt of Pakistan, Principal RCMS Engr. Sikandar Hayat informed the audience that the Super Computer installed in NUST was the fastest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based parallel computing system operating in any organization / academic institution in Pakistan till date.

This supercomputer can perform parallel computation at a peak speed of 132 Teraflops i.e. 132 Trillion Operations per second.

It is equipped with multicore processors and graphics co-processors with inter-processor communication speed of 40 Gbps.

Besides its extensive utilization in the computation-intensive research projects in the areas of Fluid Dynamics and Biosciences, this massively parallel facility can also be utilized to handle huge data processing applications of social sciences such as Flood and Weather Forecasting, Oil and Gas Exploration, energy efficient building designs and transportation management at national-level.

The chief guest in his address appreciated the efforts of the entire team associated with the project and encouraged all institutions to come forward and benefit from this massive computational facility acquired by NUST.

He also assured full support by HEC in this regard.

Rector NUST Engr. Muhammad in his welcome address shared his strategic vision and thoughts. He specifically mentioned that acquisition of this supercomputing facility would be a source of inspiration for our valued PhD scholars abroad to return to Pakistan.

This will have an impetus on the collaborative research between universities and other research organizations in country and abroad. Dr Imran Akhtar, the key note speaker, gave a highly motivating and thought provoking talk on the occasion. He encouraged the young researchers to come forward and exploit the facility at its maximum by using their domain knowledge and expertise in computational science in solving the national challenges in the areas of engineering, bio-informatics, political science, psychology and social sciences.