On April 13, 2024, the finals of the ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC24) concluded at Shanghai University. After five days of intense competition, the Zhejiang University supercomputer team secured both the first prize and the award for the world's highest computing performance. They achieved a sustained HPL floating-point performance of 100.1 teraflops and an HPCG conjugate gradient benchmark of 2422.35 gigaflops, all within a power consumption limit of 3000 watts. This marks the second consecutive year Zhejiang University's team has claimed first place in this prestigious competition.The team, consisting of five students from the College of Computer Science and Technology — Qian Xingjian (team leader), Chen Kaiqi (Turing Class), Xie Jun, Geng Hua (Turing Class), and Huang Jinjun --was guided by Associate Professor Chen Jianhai, Wang Zeke (a researcher under the "One Hundred Talents Project"), Professor Zhang Yin, and He Shuibing (also from the "One Hundred Talents Project").
ASC24 First prize
ASC24 Highest LINPACK Award
The ASC competition spanned four months, consisting of preliminary and final stages, where teams were tasked with managing a supercomputer cluster within a 3000-watt power limit and completing seven challenges. From the preliminary rounds, the team carefully analyzed the tasks under the guidance of their instructors, progressing to the finals with a third-place world ranking.
At the finals, the Zhejiang University team upgraded their custom-built "one machine with eight cards" architecture from the previous year, adding an Nvidia A100 graphics card and a server. This resulted in a "dual machine with nine cards" heterogeneous architecture, which caught the attention of the audience. This configuration excelled in GPU-heavy tasks, such as HPL, HPCG, and LLM Inference, under the strict 3000-watt power constraint, leading the team to first place in all projects on the first day. Their impressive performance garnered media attention, with CCTV conducting an interview during the second day of the event. The team's collaborative efforts allowed them to optimize applications successfully, securing both the first prize and the world's highest computing performance award.
Match site
In the ASC finals, participating teams spent the first two days building and debugging their supercomputer clusters. Over the next two days, they were tested on power consumption, computational performance, and application optimization. This year's competition included globally recognized benchmarks such as HPL and HPCG, as well as cutting-edge applications like LLM Inference for AI, seepage simulations using OpenCAEPoro, Mars atmosphere modeling through GoMars, and electronic structure calculations with WannierTools.
Field photo of all members in ASC24
On the last day of the competition, the teams are required to summarize and defend their final performances. The slogan of the Zhejiang University supercomputer team is "infinite core, infinite possibilities", aiming to face the extreme challenge of each contest and optimize to the extreme in parallel. The supercomputer team of Zhejiang University set up its own cluster on the site and worked hard to overcome each competition problem, showing the excellent professional ability and firm fighting spirit of the supercomputer team players of Zhejiang University.
Qian Xingjian, leader of the supercomputer team, was interviewed by CCTV
The Zhejiang University supercomputer team has an outstanding track record in the ASC competition, with seven first-place wins, five second-place finishes, and three awards for the world's highest computing performance, alongside several world records. Beyond ASC, the team has also performed well in global competitions such as ISC and SCC, securing fourth place in SCC22 and first in IndySCC23.
ZJUSCT event’s details
ASC Student Supercomputer Challenge is sponsored by China and supported by experts and institutions in Asia, Europe and the United States. It aims to promote the exchange and training of young supercomputering talents among countries and regions through the competition platform, and improve the application level and research and development capability of supercomputing. Taking full advantage of the technological driving force of supercomputing to promote technological and industrial innovation. The ASC Supercomputer Challenge has been held to the 11th time, attracting tens of thousands of university students from six continents around the world to sign up for the competition, which is the world's largest university student supercomputer competition.
The ASC Supercomputer Challenge is jointly organized by the Asian Supercomputer Association and Shanghai University. The competition has been held for 11 times so far, attracting more than 10,000 university students from six continents around the world. The competition aims to promote the exchange and training of young supercomputing talents around the world, improve the application level of supercomputing and research and development capabilities, and promote scientific and technological and industrial innovation. This year's ASC attracted more than 300 university teams all over the world to participate, and after a fierce preliminary selection, 25 teams, including Peking University, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhejiang University, Hsinchu Tsinghua University in Taiwan, stood out and entered the final. At the same time, this year is also the first time that overseas universities have attended the final after the epidemic.
