On November 19, a team from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) competed in the Supercomputing 2021 (SC21) Student Cluster Competition (SCC) finals. Due to travel restrictions from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the entire event was held virtually.
Selected by the SC21 Student Cluster Competition committee, ten teams from around the world participated in the finals. The SUSTech Supercomputing Team, composed of six undergraduates, won the Highest Linpack Benchmark award and placed third in the overall competition.
Previously, in this year’s 4th APAC HPC-AI competition, the SUSTech Supercomputing Team won the AI Special Prize and the overall champion. The team has achieved its best results in both the SC21 SCC and APAC HPC-AI competitions. As a result of their outstanding performance in this year’s APAC HPC-AI competition, the team was awarded a reserved spot at the ISC22 in Germany next year.
The SC21 Student Cluster Competition was sponsored by the SC International Supercomputing Conference Organizing Committee. It is one of the three most influential supercomputing competitions for international college students alongside the ASC Supercomputing Competition and the ISC Supercomputing Competition.
The Asia-Pacific (APAC) HPC-AI Challenge was jointly organized by the HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPC-AI AC) and the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore. The competition encourages teams to showcase their HPC and AI expertise around the challenges faced by AI development and testing. This year’s competition consisted of 36 teams from 13 countries and regions in APAC.
This APAC HPC-AI competition requires students to optimize the deep learning recommendation model (DLRM) from Facebook and molecular dynamics simulation software from GROMACS, which is widely used in biology, chemistry, and other fields.
The SUSTech Student Supercomputing Team fully optimized the program within five months. It successfully provided efficient solutions and operational strategies, which have important reference values in scientific research and engineering applications.
The teams in both competitions were guided by Jing FAN, Chief Engineer of the Center for Computational Science and Engineering (CCSE), and Jiahua ZHAO, the former SUSTech Supercomputing Team captain now studying at the University of Padua, Italy.
The team of six undergraduates that took part in the SC21 competition were Tongzhou GU, Botian XU, Yiqi ZHANG, Tong YUAN, Yingwei ZHENG, and Bingzhen WANG.
The team of undergraduates that took part in the APAC HPC-AI competition were Yiqi ZHANG, Tongzhou GU, Yuezhen XIE, Jingyuan ZHANG, Jixiao ZHANG, Yingwei ZHENG, and Dengke CHEN.
During the preparation for the competitions, the University provided continuous support to the teams. In 2022, the SUSTech Supercomputing Team will continue participating in major international events such as ISC22 and ASC22 to cultivate a new generation of supercomputing talents at SUSTech.
