On 27th & 28th of May 2021, the 5th BRICS Working Group meeting on High Performance Computing (HPC) and Information Communication Technologies (ICT) was organised by South Africa in an Online mode. Key discussions were made on the use of HPC and Artificial Intelligence for fighting pandemics & sustainable development projects.
Objective – To prepare for research cooperations among BRICS countries for weather-climate-environment applications through HPC technologies.
i.The meeting saw more than 50 participants from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries.
ii.Indian delegates were headed by Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Varshney, Advisor & Head, International Cooperation Division, Department of Science and Technology (DST).
iii.India’s ICT industry contributes over 13 % to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the digital economy generates about $200 billion annually from business process management (IT-BPM), e-commerce, domestic electronics manufacturing, digital payments, digital communication services, etc.
Key Discussions:
- India – Indigenous development of supercomputers by C-DAC under the National Supercomputing Mission, applicable for Drug designing & Flood early warning system
- China – AI+HPC+5 G-based digital twin open-source platform, precision farming, manufacturing & medicine
- Brazil & South Africa – Digital Earth project
Participants:
India – Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC) & DST.
Brazil – National Laboratory of Scientific Computation (LNCC) & Senai Cimatec.
Russia – Research Computing Center, Moscow State University (RCC MSU)
China – Guangzhou University, Sun Yat-sen University
South Africa – Department of Science and Innovation, National Research Foundation (NRF) and South African Weather Service
India Chairs 2nd BRICS Sherpas’ and Sous Sherpas’ meeting
The 4-day long 2nd BRICS Sherpas’ and Sous Sherpas’ meeting was chaired by India in May 2021, which made key discussions on the upcoming BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting on 1st June.
The meeting was chaired by Secretary (CPV & OIA) Sanjay Bhattacharyya and Additional Secretary (Economic Relations), P. Harish, as India’s BRICS Sherpa and Sous Sherpa respectively.
Recent Related News:
In February, India hosts First Meeting of BRICS Finance and Central Bank Deputies under its 2021 Chairship
About BRICS:
Theme for 2021- BRICS @ 15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus
2021 BRICS Presidency – India
