Indian IT Industry

[Vips]

India showcases its IT hub to SCO national coordinators. TCS campus in Bangalore. (Pakistan delegation gave it a miss)

Good otherwise the Mentally challenged/Jehadi Porki delegation would have needed a whole technical team to explain to them how IT (Information Technology) works and is different from the IT (Islamic Terrorism) that Pakistan exports the world over.

[Vips]

India set to acquire its fastest Supercomputer for improved weather forecasting.

In an effort to supercharge its current weather forecasting capabilities, India is set to acquire its fastest supercomputer so far at an estimated cost of 900 crore rupees.

This brand-new 18 petaFLOPS (PFLOPS) supercomputer is envisioned to become functional by March 2024. About 10 of its PFLOPS will go to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, for its long-range seasonal weather forecasts and the remaining 8 PFLOPS will get assigned to the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), Noida.

In computing language, ‘FLOPS’ or floating-point operations per second measure supercomputer performance. One petaFLOPS is equal to one quadrillion FLOPS.

Indian weather forecasting scene is no stranger to supercomputers — Earth Sciences Ministry’s NCMRWF hosts ‘Mihir’, a 2.8 petaFLOPS supercomputer, while IITM, Pune, is home to ‘Pratyush’, a 4.0 petaFLOPS supercomputer.

The arrival of a supercomputer nearly three times faster than the combined computing performance of Mihir and Pratyush is anticipated to enhance block-level forecasts by providing higher forecast resolution, cyclone predictions with more lead time, and ocean state and marine water quality forecasts to scientists.

In India, current weather forecasts are issued at a 12 km resolution. However, the new high-power computing facility is expected to improve the resolution to 6 km.

“Our aim is to achieve one-kilometre resolution forecasts,” said M Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Once the new 18 PFLOPS supercomputer is launched at weather forecasting institutes, the 2018-launched Mihir and Pratyush will be decommissioned after nearly eight years of service.

Speaking of India’s supercomputing prowess, the Indian supercomputer ‘AIRAWAT’ has recently been placed among the top 100 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

An acronym for AI Research Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform, AIRAWAT has bagged the 75th spot at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2023) in Germany. Installed just this year at C-DAC, Pune, the AI supercomputer functions at a mind-blowing speed of 200 AI PFLOPS.

As a testimony to India’s technological progress, other remarkable Indian supercomputers have also made it to the top 500 list. These include:

C-DAC Pune’s PARAM Siddhi-AI supercomputer ranked 131.
IITM’s Pratyush supercomputer is positioned at 169.
NCMRWF’s Mihir supercomputer placed 316.

[Vips]

[Varoon Shekhar]

Is Airawat Indian? I'm pretty sure "Mihir" and "Pratyush" are not( I stand to be corrected).

[Cyrano]

Airawat is Indra's elephant, described as white in colour.

Mihir means sun or sometimes moon. Varahamihira was a great astronomer and astrologer of the 5th or 6th century BC, author of Brihatsamhita. Mihir could refer to him too.

Pratyush means sun or sunrise. Prat - has roots that can imply eastern/morning depending on the word construction, Usha/Ushass - Sunrise/glow. Its a first name for boys, and as Pratyusha for girls.

[Varoon Shekhar]

Oh yes, the names are all Indian. But aren't Mihir and Pratyush essentially Cray supercomputers( again, perhaps not). Airawat is very likely to be Indian developed.

[sanman]

Param Shankh will be here next year (2024), and it will be Exa-scale

https://www.asianscientist.com/2022/10/ ... -exascale/

[ernest]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZGARNV4Zuo



The story of ECIL and how India wasted its Computer Science talent due to the license raj. Many problems from that era in form of bad laws, and bureaucracy still are preventing talented Indians from starting their tech ventures in India. The current semiconductor push should draw lessons from these or be doomed to underperform in the competitive tech industry

[Kanoji]

How India Is Using AI To Build The Internet For Local Languages

https://swarajyamag.com/science/how-ind ... -languages

A longish article explaining the various programs initiated the the Government of India and other academic centers to bring internet accessible to non-english speakers.

[Kanoji]

Not directly related to Indian IT industry but related to AI adoption in Indian Television, hence posting it here.

Indian Television Sees Spurt Of AI-Driven Robotic News Anchors In Multiple Language Channels

https://swarajyamag.com/technology/indi ... e-channels

[bala]

I want to highlight some deep state operated global IT companies and its chokehold on information technology worldwide, with companies like Google, Meta, etc. Meta is the owner of facebook, instagram, whatsapp and other small acquired companies. These companies have huge datasets of the world, including India. Rajiv Malhotra has already sounded the alarm bell on them. These companies have an army of Desi origin people at the helm on many positions. This effectively blunts the message that they are evil personified.

Let us examine Meta as an example. This company was founded by Mark Zuckerberg after he stole the original concept from fellow students (one happened to be Indian) at Harvard (par for the course from Harvard Ethics). The world went googoogaga over an app that tomtommed your daily happenings to the rest of the world, initially in colleges around the US. No one was interested in knowing about a Cat idling in your room, or whether you graduated at all. When the parents got hold of facebook, then the students bolted away from facebook (who wants to be monitored that closely!). Instagram is about photo/picture sharing but whatsapp is the only useful app for communication worldwide with an internet connection. Data is critical from all these apps and also who gets to store and use them. A lot of data mining can classify many things which are taken advantage of, some useful, some nefarious. In fact all phones are generating tons of data on a daily basis owned principally by the manufacturer of the phone. It is laughable that Apple prides itself on data privacy and they have the entire data set of Apple phones, every click of an app, every phone call, every transaction, every email, every text and so on. Nothing out of scope from an iPhone. Similar is the case for Android phones.

Nowadays everyone is claiming data privacy, encryption, fact checkers and so on. This only ensures no one can snoop in during transmission, however the data still lands up in some servers on US soil. Look at the defence of such mechanism by India head of meta, Sandhya Devanathan. BTW Meta has laid off thousands who were in the business of shaping opinion worldwide, remember the Russia hoax during US elections, the BS fact checkers and making Bidenwa as the El Presidente by stealing votes surreptitiosly and Donald J Trump was denied. Madam Sandhya is a young incompetent entry into the defense of Meta.

The Indian GOI has some options which must be implemented rightaway. They need to insist on getting a copy of all data generated from Indian soil, no exceptions at all. GOI can provide the data to Indian companies/GOI to mine and protect the data from being shared to anyone outside the nation. India also has a right to a fee from these foreign companies who use data insights/conclusions. These conditions could force the companies to flee but considering the size of India they will be forced to comply. The other option is to create similar apps for the public to use. The IT talent within India can easily create such apps. Remember facebook tech is nothing great, when India deals with trillions of real time transactions quite effortlessly. This should be top priority in the IT sector of India.

[sanman]

Ashwini Vaishnaw in ‘special class’ explains development of India’s semiconductor ecosystem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-N1d2ZqvOo

[bala]

Governance 2.0 - Rebooting India - Talk by Nandan Nilekani, Viral Shah at ASI (Asia Society of India)

I think this is old interview resurrected now.

You can skip to around 12:00 and watch. Quite informative, especially if you are IT geek. Also you can learn a lot about the Babucracy system and all the opposition/excuses for no change (which can drive you nuts).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdxfnw4gyZo

// I wish Nandan takes aim at the Judiciary system of India which can benefit immensely from IT/Automation and reduce the number of legal people in the Govt (most of them useless and agenda driven creaking on Britshit laws which are irrelevant for India). Actually a law lady asked him a question on this topic. She is highly interested in IT/Automation for Judiciary.
// He is working on Education sector.

[vera_k]

IT and AI. If $/IQ point is so reasonably priced in India, it should also be possible to have a 1000 people flying UAVs or hacking computers or whatever.

Amazon kills “Just Walk Out” shopping tech—it never really worked

"AI" checkout was actually powered by 1,000 human video reviewers in India

[Cyrano]

needless and overdone hi-tech is not progress.

Someone commented just below the article: " forget who, but someone started a joke that "AI" just stands for "Absent Indians"."

[vera_k]

Question that popped up in my curious mind - Is there room in India now for apps that exclude English as an option?

For instance Whatsapp, but no English language keyboard. Drawing inspiration from the Chinese success in serving their local market obviously.

[Sachin]

EY Pune employee Anna Sebastian's death: Probe finds MNC lacked labour welfare permit
Now that things have started getting ugly, authorities have started checking every rule in the law book. The Indian labour laws are out-dated when it comes to IT & ITES industries.

[shravan]

ERP customization can be a nightmare if not handled properly. My company went through a painful transition trying to modify an off-the-shelf ERP to fit our workflow, and it ended up costing way more than expected. We eventually moved to a cloud-based solution, which gave us more flexibility without excessive customization. It’s true that most ERP systems try to lock you into their ecosystem, making integration with other tools a headache.

[Mukesh.Kumar]

ERP customization can be a nightmare if not handled properly. My company went through a painful transition trying to modify an off-the-shelf ERP to fit our workflow, and it ended up costing way more than expected. We eventually moved to a cloud-based solution, which gave us more flexibility without excessive customization. It’s true that most ERP systems try to lock you into their ecosystem, making integration with other tools a headache.

++1e6 to that. Been on both sides of the fence. Non-Tech Project Manager for multiple ERP rollouts and even served time trying to support a legacy ERP which worked, but was kinda broken; and been an implementor as vendor for my own company.

Not trying to write a LinkedIn post, but scope creep, poor process understanding, 'সোনার পাথর বাটি'' promises by Sales and Marketing, and poor documentation can make life painful.

[Mukesh.Kumar]

Question that popped up in my curious mind - Is there room in India now for apps that exclude English as an option?

For instance Whatsapp, but no English language keyboard. Drawing inspiration from the Chinese success in serving their local market obviously.

Veraji, I believe that this problem is likely to be solved sooner rather than later through the rise of Collaborative AI. Till now, the main barrier has been language. Though translation became accessible, nuance, grammar, style eluded most except large firms who were able to hire or rent language services. I feel this is one of the low hanging fruits and will fall sooner rather than later.

[ernest]

I do not have much experience with this, but ProtoSphinx on twitter just shared his company's (Desksera) AI powered ERP.
He is based out of Kanpur, and big on Ind/Acc

https://www.erp.ai/

Would love to learn more on how this changes ERP from more experienced folks here

[RCase]

I do not have much experience with this, but ProtoSphinx on twitter just shared his company's (Desksera) AI powered ERP.
He is based out of Kanpur, and big on Ind/Acc

https://www.erp.ai/

Would love to learn more on how this changes ERP from more experienced folks here

The AI is probably helping you configure the software. I am unwilling to signup to know more. The website does not give me an idea of what to expect. Might work for very small organizations that need point solutions. Not sure if everything is integrated.

The challenge with ERP systems is that each company/ sector has its own set of business flows that are different. The software has to be able to accomodate the various flavors of business flows.

[RCase]

ERP customization can be a nightmare if not handled properly. My company went through a painful transition trying to modify an off-the-shelf ERP to fit our workflow, and it ended up costing way more than expected. We eventually moved to a cloud-based solution, which gave us more flexibility without excessive customization. It’s true that most ERP systems try to lock you into their ecosystem, making integration with other tools a headache.

Companies need to realize that sometimes they need to change the workflows to leverage the new software, rather than customizing the hell out of the new software to be just like their existing software. Changing ERP systems is a costly choice as the deployment affects nearly everyone in the company. Too many integrations can result in multiple points of failure as softwares and OS keep getting upgraded.

[S_Madhukar]

There is the example of Elon Musk asking Jay Vijayan (he had been interviewed twice and he accepted Tesla 2nd time around) to devise a new ERP for Tesla from the ground up in 2 weeks or so... Vijayan ended up forming his own startup later selling ERP SaaS for car dealers!

[shravan]

On the healthcare side, billing systems also need to be tailored for efficiency. I’ve seen how laboratory billing solutions can streamline processes, ensuring compliance and proper claim management.

[Tanaji]

In my opinion developing one’s own OS is a fools errand. The OS lives not on account of its technical superiority or how great its schedular is but lives and dies on how many peripherals and apps it supports. On both counts, Windows and Linux have it beat. Companies would like someone to provide support, which again is unbeatable for existing Linux and Windows. Windows is popular and indispensable for another aspect - and it’s not outlook or office apps — it’s for a lesser known thing called Active Directory. That software component is essentially the backbone of a company,s operations allowing seamless integration of all components like printers, servers, laptops, desktops, people and even conference rooms. This bit is so pervasive that no company will think of replacing it - and also why Linux or MacOS haven’t succeeded to that level.

BharatOS are Linux distorts which is great- but then what is the USP that one should use it as compared to something from Canonical or RedHat?

[vera_k]

Check out openLDAP for Active Directory.

Today, there are open source alternatives to most anything to get started with.

Trick with any IT business is that it requires heavy capital spending to sustain losses until a sufficiently large customer base is built up. Advent of AI may make it easier if AI is able to do the job of 10 or 50 engineers, but remains to be seen.

[bala]

Unix versions can be supported in backoffice servers. That market place is the current domain of Redhat. We have openshift virtualization and containers and load mgmt by Kubernetes too. Once BharatOS (i am using it as placeholder for India's verison of OS) is established, then things like virtualization/containers/kubernetes can be built on top of them. You get IIT-M RISC based chips running software and a data center can be stood up quite easily. Deploy such systems to IITs, REC, Eng Univ and allow projects that students can create. Pull down open source code from wherever and have some Prof in charge of overall program specs. Active directory can easily be mimicked again lots of open source code available. Once you get the components, software stack you can build out data centers and like AWS did you rent them out based on a charge. Someone has to own such visions and incrementally get things done (a Dr. Kalam). This is what 10,000 crores per yr will get you and perhaps in 5 yrs India can get a digital India stack which can support enterprises of all shades. India has to own the data on prem in India. The good news we have the talent pool to make such things happen at a reasonable low cost, which other nations can use (much cheaper than US systems), similar to UPI.

[S_Madhukar]

Agreed, cloud computing is definitely possible to own the whole stack specially if you stick to open source…
Most of cloud computing applications are SaaS anyway so UX is of less concern.
OS might seem difficult but make a cut of BharatOS like MacOS or even if needed rope in Samsung (they have tried to own full stack hardware and software ) for a local OS.
And please please fund and hire experts if needed to plug any security issues. That’s something they will exploit the moment you go independent!

Applications can be a challenge but look at the Naver ecosystem of South Korea, they own the maps, email, translation stack just like Google. Yes it has some font issues in the past but it works alright for the locals.

[bala]

One of the things that some bania company can engage is in creating an AI Small/Medium scale language model customized to specific domains. RAG (retrieval augmented generation) is a data set that assists AI LLMs. Instead of trying to solve generic questions like Gemini or Grok or some programs currently attempt, the SLM or MLMs solve say railways or automobile or aircraft domain questions. The RAG is loaded with railway specific look up data. These are more appropriate to Specific domains which require their own domain kb available within their system. A small frontend to take prompts within the railway system can be used within railways. Sell them to such businesses. Some work needs to go into such an endeavor and expand domain by domain.

[Vayutuvan]

so UX is of less concern.

Completely agree with posts from @Tanaji, @SMadhukar, and @Bala jis. Browser can present all (but for heavy 3D CAD modeling/CAE post-processing visualization) a desktop can provide.

Backends, authentication (single sign-on), billing (accounting for resource usage), license servers, and spot pricing of the resources is the critical infra. All the cloud computing biggies and tinies use open source backends AFAIK.

[Vayutuvan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICFOSS

As @Sachin saar said in the other thread, Kerala seems to be one of the more forward looking states as far as FLOSS is concerned. APJA Kalam ji was also quite gung-ho about FLOSS. Richard Stallman is a fan IIRC. Stallman met Modi ji also.

[bala]

but for heavy 3D CAD modeling/CAE post-processing visualization

CAD/CAM: I once created a 3D display system building things from scratch, including all the trignometry transformations (see the book: Procedural Elements of Computer Graphics by David F. Rogers ) and rendering using painter's algorithm. What is painter's algorithm? You start with the background screen and paint layer by layer until final picture. Tis a fun project and getting it working is the tricky part.

[bala]

Kerala seems to be one of the more forward looking states

Here is another Kerala Genius, Madhava who invented Calculus 250 years before Newton.

The credit goes to both these Euros - Gottfied Leibniz published 1684 and Isaac Newton in mid 1660 to late 1660s did some work.

Madhava of Sangamagrama — the forgotten genius of mathematics from Kerala.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkGiVcc1Qk0

[pravula]

Agreed, cloud computing is definitely possible to own the whole stack specially if you stick to open source…
Most of cloud computing applications are SaaS anyway so UX is of less concern.
OS might seem difficult but make a cut of BharatOS like MacOS or even if needed rope in Samsung (they have tried to own full stack hardware and software ) for a local OS.
And please please fund and hire experts if needed to plug any security issues. That’s something they will exploit the moment you go independent!

Applications can be a challenge but look at the Naver ecosystem of South Korea, they own the maps, email, translation stack just like Google. Yes it has some font issues in the past but it works alright for the locals.

What do you mean? How do you think a normal office person accesses a SAS? UX is not a concern? Apple and iOS would like to have a word with you.

[bala]

This YT by Maj Gen Rajiv Narayanan with Sanjay Dixit talks about BharatOS with the defence forces at 4:10 onwards. India is creating data centers and there are 1 lakh handsets with the fauj and more will be rolled out in coming months, years. ExtMinA, DOD and HomeMinistry will be added soon. Handsets are made in India. Apps are slowly being added selectively. By 2028 a grid with quantum communication will be deployed. By 2030 all critical civilian infra will switch to this grid. And electronic communication upto 5000 km (test is complete), more range will be added later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px38y0w0cA8

// wonderful, so GOI is busy addressing the data issue that most of us raised here. BTW Maj sahab who is connected with IIT-M says hyperloop travel will become a reality soon, successful trials have been done. Next is to operationalize things. The DRDO is also working on many path breaking products and will speak only after successful tests, etc. The Akash Teer was done quietly and surprised many around the world. A successful trial of quantum engagement based secure communication in IIT Delhi campus has been reported by DRDO.

[Vayutuvan]

@bala gaaru, I disagree on two things -

1. Quantum communication cryptography is not really needed for good enough secure communications.
2. Hyperloop is hyperhype.

[Cyrano]

Vayutuvan garu,
Hyperloop is an excuse to experiment and learn. Something we were unable or uninterested to do for a long time.

[Vayutuvan]

Vayutuvan garu,
Hyperloop is an excuse to experiment and learn. Something we were unable or uninterested to do for a long time.

ji, as long as we don't go overboard it is fine. Get experience with tunnel boring for faster execution of underground metros etc.

But then some folks would start H^3 - Hydrogen Hyperloop Hype - RSN.

[S_Madhukar]

Agreed, cloud computing is definitely possible to own the whole stack specially if you stick to open source…
Most of cloud computing applications are SaaS anyway so UX is of less concern.
OS might seem difficult but make a cut of BharatOS like MacOS or even if needed rope in Samsung (they have tried to own full stack hardware and software ) for a local OS.
And please please fund and hire experts if needed to plug any security issues. That’s something they will exploit the moment you go independent!

Applications can be a challenge but look at the Naver ecosystem of South Korea, they own the maps, email, translation stack just like Google. Yes it has some font issues in the past but it works alright for the locals.

What do you mean? How do you think a normal office person accesses a SAS? UX is not a concern? Apple and iOS would like to have a word with you.

Apple isn’t really known as a SaaS player. I meant browser based apps that have generally standard templates. There is a reason why all the code generator apps target this segment. Overly minimalistic Apple style isn’t a great template for enterprise apps anyway.