The Times Of India
Feb 4, 2023

CDAC hopes to corner 10% of microprocessor market

PUNE: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), along with partnering institutes, hopes to capture 10% of the microprocessor market with their indigenously built microprocessors, director general E Magesh said at the Pune centre on Friday.

At the video conference, he said they aim to use strategic sectors where data security is of prime importance such as defence, space etc.

“We are ambitious. We are targeting at least 10% of the Indian microprocessor market. Under the India Microprocessor Development Programme program, we have taken the RISC V architecture to design and develop new chips. We are working on dual-core for high-end applications and we expect the chip in the next six months. Beginning next year, we will have the next generation of processors called Dhruv 64, Dhanush, and then Dhanush plus. Finally, we will have an octa-core in three years’ time.

The highperformance computing processor programme and the microprocessor programme have to converge and India should have its own supercomputing chip. Going beyond octa-core, wewill have 48-core or 64-core in a chip,” he said.

Quantum computing systems

He said hybrid computers are for the moment but India should have a pure quantum machine with its own operating system. “The operating system we have is built on traditional knowledgeof a normal processor. The same operating system may not be applicable to a quantum system,” he added.

There is need for a separate operating system or multiple operating systems. “For the time being, we should have a hybrid system of HPC and quantum system in the next few years,” Magesh added.