Source: School of Mathematics and Computational Science

Written by: Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science, Network and Information Technology Center

Translated by: Liao Xueying

Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On April 19, 2013, through three-day intensive competition, the first Asia Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC13) finally came to an end in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Sun Yat-sun University representative team ranked fourth among ten finalists, and became the best team in the molecular dynamics application. Tsinghua University, National Tsing Hua University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology gained the top three. The top two in mainland China will participate in the ISC student cluster competition to be held in Germany in June, 2013.

The SYSU team was mainly formed by Professor Xu Yuesheng’s research group in the School of Mathematics and Computational Science and the Network and Information Technology Center, led by four advisors, Zhang Yongdong, Guan Weihao, Fan Zhujun, and Ye Weicai (postdoc). Six participating students are: Zhi Meipeng, Liang Depeng, Zhang Liangfu (School of Mathematics and Computational Science), Chen Zhourong, Chen Zhao (School of Software), and Chen Bingwei (School of Information Science and Technology). This team started to prepare for the competition from mid-February, with the help of super computing platform on campus and the “Southern One” GPU cluster supported by the Computational Science Innovative Research Team and Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Computational Science. Before the team went to the competition, Professor Xu Yuesheng convened a pep rally to the students and encouraged them to perform well in the competition. Through great efforts made by all team members, Sun Yat-sen University representative team ultimately get the fourth place of Asia, the third place of mainland China in ASC13, which is one place forward compared to the fourth place of the first Chinese College Student Supercomputer Challenge in 2012.

10 out of 43 teams competed in the finals, including The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, King Abdulaziz University, National Tsing Hua University, National University of Defense Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of ST. Petersburg, Sun Yat-Sen University, Tsinghua University, and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (the list is sorted in alphabetical order). In the finals, each team was asked to design a supercomputer system under an upper limit of power of 3,000 watts, and run four specified applications in fields including fluid dynamic, molecular dynamic, weather forecasting, and option pricing, to test the operational capability and the optimization ability of the designed supercomputer system. In addition, each team had to present their result and strategies to the judges on site in English, bringing higher challenges to their supercomputer application ability.

Asia Student Supercomputer Challenge (ASC) is one of the world’s three international student cluster competitions. The other two are SC in the United States and ISC in Germany. ASC is proposed by China, with the sponsor from INSPUR, getting support from more than a dozen Asian countries and regions. The purpose of this competition is to promote training, study, and application of supercomputing in Asia. ASC will inspire students’ interest in supercomputing. Sun Yat-sen university’s active participation will play a positive role in promoting cultivation of supercomputer talent, popularity of supercomputing application, and construction of Guangzhou Supercomputer Center.