high-performance computing


Cluster of brilliance


ISC High Performance conference and exhibition the HPC Advisory Council and ISC Group hosted 11 international teams for the sixth annual ISC-HPCAC Student Cluster Competition, writes Cydney Stevens


S


tudent Cluster is a winner-take-all world championship testing STEM students’ mettle in high-performance computing (HPC) disciplines.


Focused on extending research, outreach and


education globally ,the HPCAC partnered with ISC organisers in 2012 to tackle the growing demand for a skilled STEM workforce. One of few privately-led-for-public-benefit initiatives, the competition’s success is a result of the support of the global HPC community, academic and research institutions and industry contributions that support each team’s participation. Accommodating up to 12 teams, the


competition officially kicks off each July with the online submissions of team proposals via the HPCAC website. Te final 12 teams are revealed in November. Up to six undergraduates per team compete in the three-day challenge architecting a build-it-yourself platform and running standard HPC benchmarks and applications without exceeding the competitions most rigid criteria – the 3kW power threshold. Leading into the closing plenary conference,


attendees celebrate the student competitors and year’s top performers. Te annual ceremony includes three primary award categories: the Fan Favorite award for garnering the most unique votes during competition; the LINPACK award for the highest benchmark performance and the Overall Winner awards for the top three teams to achieve the highest aggregate scores for applications, benchmarks and interviews. Adding a new deep learning component to the


spring competition, teams vied for this year’s top honours, with the 2017 awards going to: l ‘Tunderstruck’ – Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya Barcelona Tech (UPC) – Tey won the most votes of any team to date taking the Fan Favorite award for a second year in a row;


l ‘FAU boyzz’ – Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen–Nürnberg – Germany’s newest entrant, achieved the highest scores to


16 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD The winning team from Tsinghua University @scwmagazine l www.scientific-computing.com take home the LINPACK award;


l Achieving the highest degree of model accuracy: Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU), along with China’s Tsinghua University and Beihang University each captcha’d a Baidu Cloud sponsored award for Deep Learning Excellence;


l Beihang University, China’s newest entry and ASC runner-up, also took third in the Overall Winner in their EU debut;


l Incumbent South Africa’s Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) became this year’s runner-up, claiming second place overall;


l China’s Tsinghua University, fresh off their ASC victory, keep the leapfrog rivalry going (with CHPC) as this year’s ISC-HPCAC 2017 Overall SCC Grand Champions!


Rounding out this year’s roster were: Germany’s Universität Hamburg (UHH); the UK’s University of Edinburgh’s EPCC team; the US combined teams, including ‘NPcomplete!’ from Indiana’s Purdue University and Massachusetts’ Northeastern University; the Boston Green Team of students from UMASS’ Boston & Dartmouth; and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center’s own NERSC team featuring two high school students in the all-female line-up. All teams take home a shared award – that


of experience, as competitors, team players and much more – gained from their involvement. In six years the ISC-HPCAC-SCC has hosted more than 30 teams and contributed to the education and experience of more than 300 participants. Designed to deliver a very real world HPC


experience, teams must source their members, advisor(s), hardware and sponsors; architect, configure and test their power-compliant platform designs and learn, load, and run benchmarks – all in addition to their academic coursework. To help prepare for the competition, in addition to their advisor(s), all teams have access to mentoring opportunities with industry leading companies, subject matter experts and even the tools they’ll potentially use during these international friendlies. Where the collaboration and competition benefits the broader community, is the


WE NOT ONLY


LEARNED FROM OTHER TEAMS, BUT WERE ALSO ABLE TO SHARE OUR KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL IN AREAS SUCH AS HPCC, HPCG AND HPL” – TEAM CAPTAIN LIU SIYUAN, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY


commitment to developing student talent by providing them with early training and access to real-world tools, systems and applications. Tese are critical to their learning but may or may not be available at their institutes. By arming them with skills that can be applied throughout their careers, they have the promise of graduating from their STEM studies as skilled, experienced, ready to work, HPC professionals. l


Cydney Stevens is the HPC Advisory Council’s media relations and events director


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