Edu-leaders

The National Knowledge Network (NKN) bandwidth is being upgraded to 10 GB from the existing 1GB by the end of this year, a senior official of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) said.

NKN envisages connecting about 15,000 colleges and universities, research centers, libraries, laboratories, healthcare and agricultural institutions across the country.

The CDAC which provides the Garuda grid computing support to NKN is already in the final stage of up-gradation. Garuda is India’s grid computing network connecting 17 cities across the country.

In the next two phases, NKN is expected to be upgraded to 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps, depending on demand from connecting centers, the official said.

NKN is proving a boon for the students enrolled with new Indian Institutes of Technology. With new IITs lacking both infrastructure and faculties; they are being connected to older IITs from where lectures streams live.