Mirror (Pune)
March 28, 2017

Four innovative tools were launched by the Centre for Development of Advanced Com puting (CDAC), Pune, on March 28, to mark the institute's 30th Foundation Day. The new products have applications across various fields - these include aiding researchers in developing skills related to artificial intelligence (AI), working towards the digital preservation of important documents, reducing the cost of discovering new drugs, and improving policymaking in the country.

The first of the new softwares aims to establish a trustworthy digital repository that allows assets to be audited for safety. Speaking about it, Dinesh Katre, associate director and HoD of human centered design and computing at CDAC, shared, "Pilots have already been run with the National Archives of India, National Cultural Audiovisual Archives and Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts." Meanwhile, the Param Shavak Deep Learning GPU System has been designed to cater to requirements of educational and research institutions, reducing time taken for a computing system to be trained. Another cloud-based software, the Molecular Structure Generator In the Cloud (MOSAIC), aims to reduce costs involved and time taken in drug discovery and associated clinical trials. The last of the quartet, e-Vidur, can aid government agencies and policymakers regarding proposed initiatives and plans, as it captures sentiments via online activity.