Team siliconindia

• A high-performance computing facility to boost genomic research and pandemic preparedness in India.
• The cluster supports AI-driven vaccine development, early disease detection, and rapid outbreak response.
• Developed under PMABHIM, the facility will serve five ICMR institutes and support VRDLs across the country.

In a major leap towards technology-driven public health advancement, the ICMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV) has inaugurated a high-performance computing (HPC) facility named NAKSHATRA, marking a significant milestone in India's efforts toward pandemic preparedness and genomic research.

The state-of-the-art computing cluster has been developed under the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PMABHIM) and forms the core of a new initiative titled 'High Performance Computing Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Hub'. It is aimed at overcoming the limitations India faced during the Covid-19 pandemic due to conventional computing systems.

NAKSHATRA is expected to revolutionize how genomic and bioinformatics data are processed, enabling faster analysis of complex data sets related to viruses and pathogens. With the world facing growing threats from zoonotic spillovers such as Covid-19 and H5N1 India's new facility is designed to support rapid, data-driven responses to viral outbreaks, including Nipah, CCHF, West Nile, Zika, mpox, and others.

Dr. Naveen Kumar, Director of ICMR-NIV, noted that global changes like climate change, deforestation, and increased global travel have driven a sharp rise in the emergence of new viruses. "From just 290 viral species and 2 virus families identified by ICTV in 1971, we now have 14,690 species across 314 families in 2023", he said, underlining the growing challenge of pathogen surveillance.

The newly commissioned NAKSHATRA cluster features 12 compute nodes, 700 cores, and 1 petabyte of storage, supporting high-end bioinformatics workflows including next-generation sequencing (NGS), transcriptomics, phylogenetics, metagenomics, and structural bioinformatics.

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The facility will also act as a central repository for sequencing data and extend its support to Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) nationwide. Initially, it will serve five ICMR institutes, strengthening the national network for real-time pathogen monitoring and genomic surveillance.

By enabling early detection of emerging threats and accelerating AI-driven vaccine and drug development, the NAKSHATRA HPC facility is a strategic step under the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, reinforcing India’s preparedness for future public health emergencies through cutting-edge technology and innovation.