Islamabad, Dec 11: A global research team, featuring Dr. Zubair Khalid from Pakistan, has been awarded the renowned Gordon Bell Prize, often called the “Nobel Prize of supercomputing,” for their pioneering work in climate forecasting. Dr. Khalid, an associate professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), is the first Pakistani to achieve this distinction.
The team earned the award for their project, “Boosting Earth System Model Outputs and Saving PetaBytes in Their Storage Using Exascale Climate Emulators.” This advanced tool leverages smaller datasets and sophisticated algorithms to enhance the speed and accuracy of climate predictions while minimizing energy usage.
Dr. Khalid described their “smart climate model” as a solution to the challenges posed by traditional systems, which are slow and generate unmanageable amounts of data.
The innovation enables faster and more precise forecasts for climate phenomena like floods, hurricanes, and heatwaves, while also providing localized insights for disaster management and agricultural planning.
This breakthrough holds great promise for addressing climate challenges in Pakistan and safeguarding vulnerable communities.