MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. In order to solve mathematical modelling tasks, Russian scientists require a network of powerful supercomputers that would take some 10 billion rubles ($157,000) and 3 years to build, says Russian Academy of Sciences ex-head Vladimir Fortov.
According to Fortov, there are only a few supercomputers in Russia at the moment, and scientists have to wait in the queue to access them, which complicates the research process.
"For example, in my institute [Join Institute of High Temperatures, Russian Academy of Sciences], where mathematical modelling is well-developed, we are forced to wait in a queue to calculate important energy-related tasks. Sometimes, we have to wait for months," Fortov said.
The academician added that this problem could be solved by a network of powerful computers.
"When I spoke at the State Council, I called for building a supercomputer or a network of those as a some kind of shared research system," he said.
According to Fortov, implementation of such project might require at least 10 billion rubles of funding. The construction process would take three years.
"Everything depends on the scale, but we should start with 10 billion rubles. It’s not much, really. […] It think, it would take two to three years. It is all real things, not a pie in the sky," Fortov concluded.
In February, a joint meeting of the State Council and Council on Science and Education took place, presided by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former RAS head Vladimir Fortov, speaking at the meeting, noted that for advancement of science, the country critically needs powerful computers of petaflops and exaflops classes. Without those, the academician opined, Russia would not be able to fulfill the National Project on Science goal to enter the top-5 of world scientific powers.