Correspondent
KOHIMA, MAY 21 (NPN): In a major technological leap for disaster preparedness and climate intelligence, Nagaland on Thursday officially launched “ELIONA”, a state-of-the-art supercomputer developed by the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) to strengthen weather forecasting, hazard analysis, disaster response and scientific research in the State.
The supercomputer was formally inaugurated by advisor NSDMA & NRE, Z. Nyusietho Nyuthe, at the Nagaland Centre for Disaster Management & Atmospheric Research (NaCDAR), housed at the Transport Commissioner building, Kohima.
Describing the launch as a proud and significant moment for NSDMA, the Home department and the State government, Nyuthe said ELIONA marked a major step towards strengthening disaster preparedness, climate resilience, scientific research and technology-driven governance in the State.
Highlighting Nagaland’s vulnerability to landslides, flash floods, earthquakes, thunderstorms and extreme rainfall, he said the State required strong systems for monitoring, early warning and timely response.
According to him, ELIONA’s high-performance computing capability would enable processing of massive meteorological, satellite, terrain, climate and disaster-related data for advanced weather modelling, rainfall prediction, landslide and flood analysis, geospatial hazard mapping and artificial intelligence-based applications. He said the platform would support key NSDMA initiatives, including the Nagaland State Disaster Management Information System, disaster risk financing, parametric insurance, urban resilience planning and community-based preparedness.
Nyuthe, however, stressed that the true value of the supercomputer would lie in its ability to support district administrations, communities and grassroots-level decision-making.
Giving an overview of the project, NSDMA joint CEO Dr. Johnny Ruangmei said the name “ELIONA”, derived from Hebrew, symbolically represented “intelligence, foresight, resilience and technological advancement”.
He described the platform as an AI-accelerated High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure designed for climate intelligence, atmospheric modelling, disaster analytics, geospatial risk computation and predictive disaster governance.
According to him, ELIONA would function as the computational backbone for weather and climate modelling, 3D digital hazard intelligence, satellite and earth observation analytics, disaster simulation frameworks, AI and machine learning research and decision intelligence systems.
The platform, he said, would support near real-time weather prediction, climate anomaly detection, flood inundation simulation, landslide susceptibility mapping, seismic risk analytics, digital terrain processing, satellite image classification and AI-assisted emergency management.
He added that ELIONA was envisioned to become one of India’s leading AI-powered climate and disaster intelligence supercomputing platforms.
Chief Secretary Sentiyanger Imchen also addressed the programme, while Home Commissioner Abhijit Sinha delivered the welcome address.
The programme was chaired by Jonjibemo Odyuo. Rev. Dr. K. Benry Lotha offered the invocation prayer and Dr. Noyingbeni Kikon delivered the vote of thanks.