Shillong: PARAM Sheersh, a supercomputing facility for bio-informatics and computational biology, was formally inaugurated at the North Eastern Hill University here on Monday.

Inaugurating the facility, renowned scientist Prof M.G.K. Menon hoped that the new technology, specifically developed for the northeast, would usher in new benefits for the region.

The Rs.20 million facility developed by the Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) would be utilised for conducting research in strategic areas of weather, seismology, bio-informatics, physics, computational fluid dynamics, material sciences, besides life sciences.

"The objective of the project is to establish a Centre of Excellence and to enhance research in the field of advanced information technology," said NEHU Vice-Chancellor Pramod Tandon.

The facility will serve as a core backbone platform for students, faculty and researchers of the region to develop competency skills for solving grand challenge problems, he added.

An on-site engineer will also be provided by C-DAC for the entire management and running of the facility as well as proper hand holding to the users. Intensive training on Parallel Programming, Linux and cluster system administration, network and storage administration and usage of supercomputing is also a part of the activity. IANS