“Too good to be true! Is it really possible to get our cohorts on board? Is it really free? How do we get to use the facility?”. These were some of the questions clinicians, researchers and start-up founders raised, quite surprised after the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) revealed that it was ready to onboard them onto its ‘ICE-Cloud’, an indigenous, comprehensive digital platform for conducting complex scientific research using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC).
The excitement followed CDAC scientist Vinod Jani’s presentation on ICE during the ‘AI-LAN: Re-imagining Healthcare’ programme organised by AIC-CCMB on Tuesday (January 20, 2026). The medical and bioinformatics high performance computing wing of CDAC, an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, has significantly expanded its capabilities under programme director Uddhavesh Sonavane.
The 40-member division now offers an open-access platform equipped with supercomputers and tools for software development, AI, quantum technologies, simulation studies and more. The platform is available to students, scientists, researchers, start-ups and others.
“Most services are free and require no installation because we are a government institution aiming to promote indigenous research. Where fees exist, they are negligible. Importantly, our platform can be accessed remotely, so researchers can work from anywhere except China”, said Mr. Jani.
In a subsequent interaction, CDAC scientist Sandeep Surendra Malaviya explained that ICE (icecloud.in) was initiated five years ago as a pilot project funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to support scientific research.
“We realised researchers were losing precious time searching for software packages and platforms to access or store data. Since we were already an HPC organisation, we expanded our services. We now have 500 users, and a few start-ups whose websites are hosted on the platform”,he said.
“Currently, we are not charging anyone because we aim to create a collaborative environment by providing the tech backbone. Much of the research in India happens in silos. Our platform is government-backed, making it unique and secure. We help firms keep their data private or open, depending on their mandate”, said Mr. Malaviya.
What ICE offers?
ICE offers an array of services — storage, bioinformatics tools, virtual hosting, pipeline execution, AI visualisation, development environments on the cloud and seamless collaboration features. “We continued augmenting our technology based on our experiences and researchers needs. To popularise the platform, we have conducted nine workshops across various institutes. We now plan to scale up. So far, we have trained 20,000 people and launched 37 supercomputers across the country, all centrally managed from Pune. We currently run a 50 teraflop cluster and will expand our compute capacity based on future project requirements”, the scientists added.
Published – January 21, 2026 04:06 pm IST
