Source: SYSU News Center, Inspur Group
Written by: SYSU News Center, Inspur Group
Photo by: Guo Zhongfei
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The finals of the world’s largest supercomputer competition — 2014 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC14) officially started on April 21. Sixteen finalist teams from universities at home and abroad are competing at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) for various awards including Overall Gold Winner, e Prize and Highest LINPACK.

ASC14 is co-organized by Asia Supercomputer Community, Sun Yat-sen University and Inspur Group. Since its launch in November 2013, 82 teams from the five continents around the globe have registered. After two months of fierce preliminary contest, 16 teams are qualified for the finals: Nanyang Technological University, Purdue University, University of São Paulo, Ural Federal University, University of Miskolc, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, National Tsing Hua University, Taiyuan University of Technology, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beihang University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology and Sun Yat-sen University.

It is learned that the 16 finalist teams will accomplish a series of tasks in the 5-day finals: Cluster building and testing; Optimization of Linpack, Quantum Espresso, SU2 application; Optimization of LICOM, Secret Application; 3D-EW on Tianhe-2; and Presentation. We will wait and see which team will stand out in 3D-EW on Tianhe-2 and win e Prize, and which team can break the world record of Linpack score within the power limit of 3000W.

According to supercomputer experts, recent supercomputer development has shown a trend of enhancement in both software and hardware. With Tianhe-1A, Sunway BlueLight MPP and Tianhe-2, China has an increasing international influence in the field of supercomputer system, and the focus of supercomputer development will gradually move toward building the “soft power”. ASC will advance the process from the aspect of supercomputer application and talent training.