Bangladesh to buy supercomputer: Palak

The government is set to buy a supercomputer to analyse critical data and reap the maximum benefits of digitisation, said Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT.

A supercomputer is a high-performance computing machine designed to have extremely fast processing speeds, and is employed to handle very large databases or for applications that require immense amount of mathematical calculations. For instance, Bangladeshi researchers used supercomputers for genome sequencing of jute in Malaysia.

The demand for a supercomputer came from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department after the recent floods in the haor areas.

“If we have a supercomputer, we might avoid floods in the haor areas by analysing data much before the disaster hits. It will help us save assets worth thousands of crores of taka,” Palak said at a programme held at the Daffodil International University in Dhaka on Tuesday.

In the absence of one in Bangladesh, people go to Malaysia or developed countries during emergencies to access supercomputers.

“We need this computer for the sake of digitisation, which will ultimately save our assets and money,” the state minister said, adding that the purchase will be made shortly.

The supercomputer will be sourced from Inspur, a Chinese information technology company with speciality in server hardware manufacturing.

The ICT division has asked Inspur to share the price of the supercomputer and the rate of return on investment.

Officials of the ICT Division said they would involve the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and other allied public offices with the process.