In the just-concluded finals of the 2018 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge, the team of Zhejiang University victoriously claimed the first prize.
The Certificate and Trophy Obtained
This time, the finals were hosted by Nanchang University and held in Jiangxi Nanchang University for a duration of 5 days (May 5th – May 9th). Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ShanghaiTech University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Taiwan Tsinghua University, Russia’s Saint-Petersburg State University, Texas A&M University, Hungary Miskolc University and other 11 colleges and universities participate in the finals. The finalists were selected from more than 300 colleges around the world that participated in the preliminary competitions.
Zhejiang University obtains the First Prize in the 2018 ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge
In the 5 days of fierce competition, each participating team went through 3 stages of challenges: The first stage involves building a super computer cluster and a debugging environment within two days. The second stage is the evaluation of the super computer cluster’s calculation capabilities and the optimization of its application performance. In this stage, each team has to complete a series of extremely challenging tests in 2 days with a restriction of 3,000 watts on their self-built clusters which included the following: 1) Running HPL, HPCG benchmark test program, obtaining the highest computational performance of the super computer cluster; 2) Re-known Noble prize in Applied Sciences and Applied Cry-Electronic Calculation RELION software, and the parallel application effects field test; 3) Parallel optimization test with artificial intelligence machine reading comprehension on Microsoft’s MSMARCO data set; 4) the optimization performance test on Computational Fluid Dynamics software CFL3D provided by NASA from the United States of America in advance; 5) The computational optimization of mysterious application software SIESTA that was given in the competition. The last stage is a one-day summary and award session.
The slogan of Zhejiang University’s supercomputer team is “Unlimited core, infinite possibilities.” In the face of arduous adversaries, their ultimate goal is to use parallel optimization to the extreme; They managed to set up a cluster on the spot and tried their hardest to become victorious in each challenge. The results of their effort were satisfactory, the players played at their own skill levels, and it truly displayed the indomitable fighting spirit of Zhejiang University, for they continue to challenge and improve themselves in order to break through their limits.
Installation and Configuration of the Cluster
Attacking the Question
Truly Tired
The ASC Students Supercomputer Challenge was initiated by China and co-sponsored by Asia Supercomputing Association and China Inspur Group. The motivation of this competition is to promote the exchange and provide training for those talented in supercomputers from various countries and areas. The competition also aims at improving global supercomputing applications, research and development capabilities. This will unleash the power of supercomputing technology so as to promote technology and industry innovation. The ASC Students Supercomputer Challenge has been held for seven times so far. Presently, it is the largest and most participated supercomputer event for students worldwide.
Zhejiang University’s Supercomputer Team
Zhejiang University has made excellent achievements in the ASC Students Supercomputer Challenge. Up until now, Zhejiang University has won four first prizes, one world’s highest computing performance award and has broken one world record. In ASC14, ASC15, ASC16 and ASC18, the team of Zhejiang University has all successfully entered the finals and victoriously obtained the first prize. In ASC16, the team of Zhejiang University broke the world record at the time, receiving the highest performance individual award, together with the wave model of numerical simulation application software MASNUM provided by China’s Ocean One. The team of Zhejiang University was also the only one that achieved the highest performance of GPU versions for application.
In this competition, the Zhejiang University sent a supercomputer team of 11 members with teachers Cheng Jian Hai and Chen Qin Xian from the College of Computer Science and Technology as team leaders. Among the participants, there were 6 members (one supervisor and five students), including Yu Zhen Yun, Wu Fan, Sun Yao Zhu, Shi Ge and Yang Xuan Da. There is also an observation team of five members named Jian Hao Ran, Yuan Pu Bo and Chen Yan, who are three new members of the supercomputer team, and the former team member Xu Qi Yuan. From the preliminary rounds to the finals, teachers and students allocated the work properly and collaborated with each other to analyze the given topics and develop strategies. Starting from establishing the cluster of supercomputers, they wrote code to perform debugging, optimization and model training. Through two months of hard work, they have overcome many challenges and successfully completed the various tasks required in the preliminaries and finals. Eventually, Zhejiang University’s supercomputer team successfully advanced to the finals as the fourth in the preliminary contest. They exerted themselves in the finals, thus winning the first prize.
2018 ASC Global Supercomputer Contest official website: http://www.asc-events.org/ASC18/
