As the arriving of 2015, we welcome many things, including the 2015 ASC Supercomputer Challenge (ASC15), which have enrolled 150+ teams (new record). The teams come from over 135 universities covering 6 continents, among which the United States shares 21 universities, only after China’s 88.
As one of the largest supercomputing challenges in the world, ASC was proposed by China and founded with the helps from experts and supercomputing organizations all over the world. It has made great reputation, attribute for its rapid development and great efforts since 2012.
Along with the U.S. and China, many universities from over 20 countries have joined in ASC15, including Japan, Russia, Australia, Hungary, Indonesia and so on, which rewrote the record.
What’s more, the number of registered teams from the U.S. tenfold to that in 2014. Besides, it is the first time for Japan, Germany, France, India, and Indonesia to join in the ASC challenge. Many of them have not taken part in SC and ISC yet.
Among those registered, there are a lot promising teams all over the world, such as MIT, Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of Tennessee, Nanyang Technological University, Tsing Hua University… Also some teams that have achieved success in the former ASC challenge like Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the joint team of Purdue Univ. and Colorado Univ, National Tsing Hua University, and CHPC. We need to wait and see which team could be qualified for the final.
One rule changed this year. That is each university is able to have more than one team, thus one can see the competition could be even tougher as.
Dr. Qing (Kitty) Ji, the executive director of ASC points out that there are 3 features of teams for ASC15. First,the area covered has been up to 6 continents with over 20 countries. Second, many new teams have joined in. And third, there are a lot of teams with strong competitiveness. The popularity of ASC15 is benefited mainly from the road show adopted. During the registration period, ASC has been to 20+ countries and regions all over the world to introduce the background, development of supercomputing, and the information related to this challenge which strongly raises the interests of students and teachers.
With four-year growing, the ASC has successfully introduced more students and HPC lovers the latest supercomputer technologies. It has also united the experts and talents in supercomputer field all over the world, especially Asia, then made the further development of HPC and the cultivation of talents more promising.