National Knowledge Network

The Government's decision to set up National Knowledge Network was announced in the Budget Speech, 2008-09. An initial amount of Rs. 100 crore for FY 2008-09 was allocated to the Department for establishing the National Knowledge Network. A High Level Committee (HLC) was set up under the Chairmanship of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India to coordinate and monitor the establishment of the National Knowledge Network.
On 25th March 2010 the Government approved the establishment of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) at an outlay of Rs.5990 crore, to be implemented by National Informatics Centre (NIC) over a period of 10 years.

The objective of the National Knowledge Network is to bring together all the stakeholders in Science, Technology, Higher Education, Research & Development and Governance.

Network will consist of an ultra-high speed Core (multiples of 10Gbps and upwards), and over 1500 nodes. It is scalable to higher speed and more nodes also. The Core shall be complemented with a distribution layer at appropriate speeds. The participating institutions can directly or through distribution layer connect to the National Knowledge Network at speeds of 100 Mbps /1 Gbps.
The application areas envisaged under the National Knowledge Network cover
Agriculture
Education
Health
e-governance
Grid Computing (High Performance Computing)